Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!nntp.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: John Ames Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,alt.usage.english Subject: Re: GNU Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2026 14:01:32 -0800 Organization: A place where nothing fits quite right Lines: 18 Message-ID: <20260306140132.000079db@gmail.com> References: <10oe8j6$i4b0$1@dont-email.me> <1rrkjfl.izsear126lhe1N%snipeco.2@gmail.com> <10ofh67$uvj2$1@artemis.inf.ed.ac.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Date: Fri, 06 Mar 2026 22:01:37 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="84ad72b3c4bca5cad872434570d08c65"; logging-data="1103588"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX19FMFItaVKXY4Fzc2i4U9PV46Gz6+blX2M=" Cancel-Lock: sha1:mOoiExBZPAi0zxK9XSLvw1wqvWA= X-Newsreader: Claws Mail 4.3.0 (GTK 3.24.42; x86_64-w64-mingw32) Xref: csiph.com comp.os.linux.misc:82501 alt.usage.english:1138625 On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 21:32:55 -0000 (UTC) richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) wrote: > > If Aluminium should be pronounced "Aloominum", how should e.g. > > Helium; Sodium; Potassium; Uranium; Plutonium; etc. be pronounced? > > But they don't spell it "aluminium". This got me curious enough to look it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Etymology Surprisingly (compared to the usual path of US-vs.-Commonwealth variances,) "aluminum" actually came first and was coined by a British chemist, while "aluminium" was coined by another Brit who thought that the former didn't sound classy enough; Americans ended up with the original spelling mainly because Noah Webster didn't include the latter in his dictionary. "Aluminum" also happens to be the genitive plural in Latin, FWIW.