They have historically said aluminum in Canada too…
It’s not an American term. It’s literally what the British discoverer of the metal named it (after originally naming it Alumium), both because it resembled platinum as well as wanting to associate it with the more prestigious metal.
Aluminium is actually the “incorrect” way of spelling it anyway because it comes from the second neuter declination from Latin where -um is the correct way. Which is why you have plumbum (lead, Pb), argentum (silver, Ag), aurum (gold, Au), ferrum (iron, Fe), hydrargyrum (mercury, Hg), copper (cuprum, Cu), stannum (tin, Sn), molybdenum, lanthanum, and tantalum. Arsenic was originally arsenicum as well.
The second neuter declension from Greek is where you get -on elements like the noble gasses. Neon, krypton, argon, xenon, radon. And then helium, which by its Greek etymology should be helion instead of helium. Also Silicon, carbon, boron, and oganesson.
Oganesson by the IUPAC rules should actually be Oganessium, because the naming rules required all new elements to end in -ium regardless of properties. They ended up naming it oganesson because it falls in the noble gas group, even though it’s predicted to be a metallic solid at room temp and not a gas at all.
I genuinely love this response. It’s so detailed and in-depth that it makes me wish for a “Umm… Actually” Lemmy community.
I’m all for pedantry, but that’s just excuses; desperate nitpicking to justify being the only two countries to use the term.
Edit: Thin epidermium. Hey, did you guys know rhotic 'r’s are the correct pronunciation?
Their explanation does nothing to justify the number of countries that use that pronunciation. It merely denotes the etymological history.
Ostensibly, granted.
No, it’s clear you are simply applying the number in an attempt to discredit their logic, but the current number of countries has nothing to do with the fact that the British started spelling and pronouncing it differently, not the Americans.
And it wouldn’t be a big deal if you were capable of acknowledging that languages evolve regionally and that the evolutions are valid. But you can’t do that because it would ruin your ability to shame other English-speaking countries for their own regional linguistic evolutions whenever they diverge from the UK.
I’m not trying to discredit anything at all, in fact it was interesting, but it doesn’t hold water with me in this particular instance. Normally I ‘could care less’ how much paasta with toonafish and 'erbs they wanna eat at the huvvercraft ternament, but this is a scientific term the world has standardised and to eschew that is just obstinate.
If you’re referring to “aluminium”, Canadians don’t use that. We use “aluminum” just like in the US.
Also both Americans and Canadians use all the other iums. It’s only that one we don’t do.
It knows why.
Because they decided to name things -ium to sound alike later down the road, even if it’s etymologically incorrect.
If we used the original etymologically correct names for elements we would also say plumbum, ferrum, argentum, aurum, cuprum, stannum, and hydrargyrum for lead, iron, silver, gold, copper, tin, and mercury respectively. Which is why their element symbols are Pb, Fe, Ag, Au, Cu, Sn, and Hg.
I’m pretty sure they say, “aluma-lum”
We say alumi-num. Brits on the other hand say a-loo-min-ee-um.
I don’t see the connection between Wolverine and Adam Ant, he’s British, not Canadian.
Adaboytium
