Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Chemistry => Topic started by: Eric A. Taylor on 05/11/2009 03:18:58
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The English call it "aw-loo-mini-um"
The Americans call it "aw-lume-in-um"
Why can't the English just fall in line and call it by it's proper name? I know that an Englishman discovered the stuff but everybody knows that Americans are always right so the rest of the world just needs to follow along...
In case you haven't figured it out this post is meant to be funny. But I would like to know how the name difference came about.
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.......everybody knows that Americans are always right .......
Would George www. Bush. com be a good example here???(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fbestsmileys.com%2Fclueless%2F1.gif&hash=ba6e884e2ac18d739c0e89967c82862b)
Perhaps the first American to utter the word had a bit of a speech impediment, but the rest of the US followed him nonetheless.
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The correct pronounciation would be latin, thus: ah-loo-mini-um
Sodium would be pronounced as Nah-tri-um
and Potassium would be pronounced as Kah-li-um [;)]
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The correct pronounciation would be latin, thus: ah-loo-mini-um
Sodium would be pronounced as Nah-tri-um
and Potassium would be pronounced as Kah-li-um [;)]
That makes roughly as much sense as saying that this entire site should be in Latin.
There's also a couple of other problems.
No native speaker of Latin ever had occasion to refer to sodium, potassium or aluminium so there wouldn't be a real Latin word for them.
Secondly, the number of tape recordings from 2000 years ago is nil.
How do we know what "Latin pronunciation" ever was? It's not like any of us has heard it.
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I tend to say things how they're spelt, do Americans spell it different too? And how do they spell nuclear? Many of them seem to pronounce it "nucular"
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Let's not get into a political debate here. It's just a way to get people pissed off (that's American "Pissed" angry not drunk). Science needs to stay away from politics. However politics needs to use science to hake wise decisions and make good policy.
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I tend to say things how they're spelt, do Americans spell it different too? And how do they spell nuclear? Many of them seem to pronounce it "nucular"
So do you say "ka-nife" How do you say "psychology" or "physics" English is a strange language. It's an amalgam of many others.
Americans spell aluminum British spell aluminium (my spell checker indicates "aluminium" is spelled wrong) who's right? BOTH are correct.
Probably in 3 or 4 hundred years the people in Briton and America will be speaking completely distinct languages. Already differences have appeared.
boot: In England a part of a car, in America a type of shoe
bonnet: In England the other end of the car, in America a type of hat
lift: In England a box that goes up and down, in America a verb
wellington: in England a type of shoe, in America.....a city in Vermont.
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Americans smell aluminum
Kids over here tend to get a bigger kick out of sniffing glue!!!
***FOG***
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boot: In England a part of a car, in America a type of shoe
bonnet: In England the other end of the car, in America a type of hat
lift: In England a box that goes up and down, in America a verb
wellington: in England a type of shoe, in America.....a city in Vermont.
Boot is also footwear in England.
Bonnet is also a piece of millinery in England
Lift is also a verb in England
Wellington is a town in Somerset and was the Duke who defeated Napoleon Boney Parts and after whom the boot is named.
I disagree with you mountaineirc1969, I don't think the two versions of the language will drift apart. I am more of the opinion that, with such frequent contact between us, as here on this forum and many others of the like, the two languages are more likely to merge. Americanisms are already used in the UK and, of course, Englishisms (if there is such a word), are used in the US.
The languages drifted apart because of lack of contact between the populous. The www has given us the chance to communicate with each other on a daily basis and a great many individuals take full advantage of that. Surely that must lead to a greater acceptance of the differences. In the past, had I seen the word 'flavor' written, I would have corrected it to 'flavour', now I accept it.
Who knows, taken to its ultimate, with regular contact between ordinary people from the UK, USA, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, India, China, Japan etc. etc. we might even find that a worldwide single language begins to develop. I am talking a hell of long way down the line, but the possibility is there.
NB.
Best remove France from that, they are fiercely protective of their language and have banned the use of English in some instances. e.g. An advert cannot say 'Un bon weekend' despite the fact that there is no French equivalent for the word 'weekend'.
As that great master of languages, George www Bush.com, said, "The French have no word for 'entrepreneur'."
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The correct pronounciation would be latin, thus: ah-loo-mini-um
Sodium would be pronounced as Nah-tri-um
and Potassium would be pronounced as Kah-li-um [;)]
That makes roughly as much sense as saying that this entire site should be in Latin.
There's also a couple of other problems.
No native speaker of Latin ever had occasion to refer to sodium, potassium or aluminium so there wouldn't be a real Latin word for them.
Secondly, the number of tape recordings from 2000 years ago is nil.
How do we know what "Latin pronunciation" ever was? It's not like any of us has heard it.
You show keen irony-detecting skills here [;)] (<-PS: this is irony too)
On-topic: both pronunciations are correct
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I hate to say this, but actually the English spelling is wrong, despite an Englishman (Davy) discovering aluminium and christening it "aluminum". IUPAC decided to bring the metal into line with other "-iums" and changed the name, but then a bunch of rebellious Americans erverted to Davy's original name, leaving us as the oddballs (for a change!).
Here's a quote from the aluminium episode of "Chemistry in its Element", a weekly podcast made by the Naked Scientists for the Royal Society of Chemistry...
"Sir Humphrey Davy, the Cornish chemist who discovered the metal, called it 'aluminum', after one of its source compounds, alum. Shortly after, however, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (or IUPAC) stepped in, standardizing the suffix to the more conventional 'ium'. In a further twist to the nomenclature story, the American Chemical Society resurrected the original spelling in 1925, and so ironically it is the Americans and not the British that pronounce the element's name as Davy intended..."
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/podcast/Interactive_Periodic_Table_Transcripts/aluminium.asp
Chris
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Aluminium is the IUPAC spelling and therefore, at least within the scientific community, the correct spelling. The pronunciation is debatable. The american pronunciation of the English language is sufficiently wacky anyway that, frankly, who cares?
Correspondingly, the correct spelling of sulfur is with an "f", not the more traditional "ph".
Also, I deduce from the prose style (and the fact that I reckon daveshorts would go with the IUPAC convention) that the "Chris" at the bottom of the post ostensibly by daveshorts is infact a signature...
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Just as well you didn't say 'krypton' should be changed to 'crapton'.
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steady on with the french wile it is true anglo'isms have been band in the offical dictonary, all others use words like weekend e-mail (the proper french for e-mail is courial electronic).oh and Happy Hour in pubs is still Happy Hour [;D]
at the same time the correct pronoucetion of element 13 is.... anyone you want as long as the person your telling it to understands you.
teaching is hard not only do you have to know your subject you also have to impart the infomation to a group of people that have know idea what your talking about.
you have to use all language skills possible even largo
largo is i dont know in english a way of saying things like init instead of isnt it also like london ryming slang.
providing your understood all is good
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How on earth do those in the US, get 'labratory' from 'laboratory'. It sounds so infantile to me.
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Good question.
I also await a decree from IUPAC about fosforus, (P) zennon (Xe) and led (Pb.
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While we're at it, I think we should change (H) to Hidrogen, or would it have to be Highdrogen?