Aluminum

[MacTheWolf (imported)]

What did the sheet of aluminum say after it was beat in a race?

Curses, foiled again.

[Kortpeel (imported)]

What did the sheet of aluminum say after it was beat in a race?

Curses, foiled again.

Groan. But why do you guys over there always spell 'aluminium' incorrectly?

You get sodium and potassium etc right. So why is aluminium the exception?

[gareth19 (imported)]

Groan. But why do you guys over there always spell 'aluminium' incorrectly?

You get sodium and potassium etc right. So why is aluminium the exception?

Because like platinum and tantalum it is aluminum, so named in 1812 by Britain's greatest chemist, Sir Humphrey Davy. The misspelling aluminium was the product of an ignorant and snobbish reviewer in the Quarterly Review who opined that aluminum (the correct neuter form of alumina, the accepted term for aluminum oxide) "didn't sound so classical as aluminium," although the suffix ium applies only to forms like magnesia (the oxide of magnesium).

[Kortpeel (imported)]

Because like platinum and tantalum it is aluminum, so named in 1812 by Britain's greatest chemist, Sir Humphrey Davy. The misspelling aluminium was the product of an ignorant and snobbish reviewer in the Quarterly Review who opined that aluminum (the correct neuter form of alumina, the accepted term for aluminum oxide) "didn't sound so classical as aluminium," although the suffix ium applies only to forms like magnesia (the oxide of magnesium).

Thank you, gareth19. One lives and learns.

[Il Musico (imported)]

In all of the other languages I know, aluminium DOES have that "i", even if the rest of the word changes somewhat. And in English, both forms are accepted.

This is from Wikipedia:

Most countries use the spelling aluminium (with an i before -um). In the United States, this spelling is largely unknown, and the spelling aluminum predominates.[54][55] The Canadian Oxford Dictionary prefers aluminum, whereas the Australian Macquarie Dictionary prefers aluminium.

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) adopted aluminium as the standard international name for the element in 1990, but three years later recognized aluminum as an acceptable variant. Hence their periodic table includes both.[56] IUPAC officially prefers the use of aluminium in its internal publications, although several IUPAC publications use the spelling aluminum.[57]

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Just a question: Why that question, here? Aluminium isn't a very good material to make knifes or anything like that!

[Dave (imported)]

Guys,

It's ALUMINUM because I ahve been in the all-aluminum ALCOA building and what does Alcoa stand for? Aluminum Company of America. BTW - everything in it is aluminum including the cold-cold-cold-hearted toilet seats (except the windows).

Not Aluminium.

So there!

;);)