6 ms·

> Yet many people persist in calling aluminum foil "tinfoil." > We chemists get annoyed at things like that. > Now, about aluminum foil. Actually, most chemi

> Yet many people persist in calling aluminum foil "tinfoil." > We chemists get annoyed at things like that. > Now, about aluminum foil. Actually, most chemists are profoundly annoyed at the Americans' inability to spell aluminium properly...

dpe82 7mo ago
Sir Humphry Davy first isolated the stuff and he called it aluminum, so that's good enough for me.
- st_goliath 7mo ago
  Well, the name Davy originally proposed was alumium. I propose we switch to that instead, so everyone can be annoyed equally and in the same way.
  - dpe82 7mo ago
    I accept your proposal; alumium it is.
CamperBob2 7mo ago
[flagged]
- foobarbecue 7mo ago
  It's cold and lonely here on the moon. -- Jonathan Coulton
- antonvs 7mo ago
  Did visiting the moon damage your hearing? Last I checked there haven’t been any Americans on the moon for over half a century. Perhaps if you used the metric system…
  - hacker_homie 7mo ago
    They do use the metric system at NASA maybe that’s why they haven’t been back to the moon.
    - antonvs 7mo ago
      Yes but their US contractors don’t all use metric, which is what caused them to miss Mars that one time.
      - r2_pilot 7mo ago
        If I recall correctly they didn't miss Mars. Quite the opposite, really.
        JSR_FDED 7mo ago
        Mars missed them?
  - doodlebugging 7mo ago
    ...and the SAE system like me (older American here) then you would be able to provide the answers that confuse your audience the most when they ask about volumes, velocities, dimensions, etc. and you would have as much fun in life as I have had. Your metric system is for people who need to have things simplified in order for them to be understandable and relatable. It's about as dumbed down as you can make something. Lowest common denominator type stuff. Americans have always thrived on challenge and that is why we stupidly cling to the complexity of the SAE system of units. It fits so we sits.
- st_goliath 7mo ago
  > can't hear you from all the way up here ON THE MOON. cough https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-German-phrase-Hinter-dem-Mond-leben-translate-into-and-mean-in-English https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-German-phrase-Hinter-dem...
thomassmith65 7mo ago
It isn't clear if that is a dig at Americans having their own spelling of aluminum/aluminium, or ignorance that Americans have their own spelling.
elric 7mo ago
> Actually, most chemists are profoundly annoyed at the Americans' inability to spell aluminium properly... That's just patently false. Anyone who's had any sort of education in chemistry/physics is aware of the history of the word and doesn't give a damn.
gethly 7mo ago
Try to make them pronounce nuclear instead of nucelar :D
monocasa 7mo ago
Humphrey Davy, the British chemist who performed early work to isolate the element, and who initially named it, called it 'aluminum'. Americans mostly followed him, but the British changed later at the complaints of the French, Swedish, and Germans that it used essentially English roots rather than Latin ones. Which, considering that we now have elements named such things as Tennessine, seems to be a bit of an argument that doesn't quite apply anymore.
- adrian_b 7mo ago
  The suffix "-io-", which becomes "-ium" in accusative/nominative neuter Latin nouns, is extremely ancient. It is inherited from the common Indo-European language. This suffix is used to derive nouns or adjectives from other nouns, where the derived nouns are understood to have some kind of relationship with the base nouns. A great number of the names of chemical elements use the Latin variant of this suffix, i.e. "-ium", to derive the name of the element either from the name of the substance from which it has been extracted, or from the name of some characteristic property of the element or from some mythological name or from some person or place that is intended to be honored by this choice. The name of aluminium comes from the name of the aluminium sulfate in Latin, which was "alumin-". So "aluminium" means "something that is not aluminium sulfate, but it is related to aluminium sulfate". On the other hand, "aluminum", which lacks the derivation suffix, just means "aluminium sulfate" (which has become "alum" in English), but the noun has been converted from the 3rd Latin declension to the 2nd Latin declension. Such conversion between declensions were not unusual even for native Latin speakers. So this is definitely a grammar mistake, which is annoying for those who understand the meaning of words, because it creates an exception that must be remembered, instead of applying the general rule. In general the British and American scientists have always been much more lax in observing grammar rules than the continental Europeans. So there are also other chemical elements where the English names differ from the correct names. For instance the name of the chemical element "silicium" is derived from Latin "silic-" (flint), from which it is extracted, but in English it has been changed to "silicon", for the silly reason to make it rhyme with "carbon", despite the fact that most chemical properties of silicon resemble more those of boron or of phosphorus or of germanium, than those of carbon (because valence is only 1 of the 3 main properties that determine chemical behavior, electronegativity and ionic/atomic size are equally important). (Carbon is one of the few elements that were known in pure form already in the Ancient World, so its name is not derived from another noun.) ("Boron" has also been changed in English to make it rhyme with "carbon", which is equally baseless.)

dpe82 7mo ago

Sir Humphry Davy first isolated the stuff and he called it aluminum, so that's good enough for me.

st_goliath 7mo ago
Well, the name Davy originally proposed was alumium. I propose we switch to that instead, so everyone can be annoyed equally and in the same way.
- dpe82 7mo ago
  I accept your proposal; alumium it is.

CamperBob2 7mo ago

[flagged]

foobarbecue 7mo ago
It's cold and lonely here on the moon. -- Jonathan Coulton
antonvs 7mo ago
Did visiting the moon damage your hearing? Last I checked there haven’t been any Americans on the moon for over half a century. Perhaps if you used the metric system…
- hacker_homie 7mo ago
  They do use the metric system at NASA maybe that’s why they haven’t been back to the moon.
  - antonvs 7mo ago
    Yes but their US contractors don’t all use metric, which is what caused them to miss Mars that one time.
    - r2_pilot 7mo ago
      If I recall correctly they didn't miss Mars. Quite the opposite, really.
      - JSR_FDED 7mo ago
        Mars missed them?
- doodlebugging 7mo ago
  ...and the SAE system like me (older American here) then you would be able to provide the answers that confuse your audience the most when they ask about volumes, velocities, dimensions, etc. and you would have as much fun in life as I have had. Your metric system is for people who need to have things simplified in order for them to be understandable and relatable. It's about as dumbed down as you can make something. Lowest common denominator type stuff. Americans have always thrived on challenge and that is why we stupidly cling to the complexity of the SAE system of units. It fits so we sits.
st_goliath 7mo ago
> can't hear you from all the way up here ON THE MOON. cough https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-German-phrase-Hinter-dem-Mond-leben-translate-into-and-mean-in-English https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-German-phrase-Hinter-dem...

thomassmith65 7mo ago

It isn't clear if that is a dig at Americans having their own spelling of aluminum/aluminium, or ignorance that Americans have their own spelling.

elric 7mo ago

> Actually, most chemists are profoundly annoyed at the Americans' inability to spell aluminium properly... That's just patently false. Anyone who's had any sort of education in chemistry/physics is aware of the history of the word and doesn't give a damn.

gethly 7mo ago

Try to make them pronounce nuclear instead of nucelar :D

monocasa 7mo ago

Humphrey Davy, the British chemist who performed early work to isolate the element, and who initially named it, called it 'aluminum'. Americans mostly followed him, but the British changed later at the complaints of the French, Swedish, and Germans that it used essentially English roots rather than Latin ones. Which, considering that we now have elements named such things as Tennessine, seems to be a bit of an argument that doesn't quite apply anymore.

adrian_b 7mo ago
The suffix "-io-", which becomes "-ium" in accusative/nominative neuter Latin nouns, is extremely ancient. It is inherited from the common Indo-European language. This suffix is used to derive nouns or adjectives from other nouns, where the derived nouns are understood to have some kind of relationship with the base nouns. A great number of the names of chemical elements use the Latin variant of this suffix, i.e. "-ium", to derive the name of the element either from the name of the substance from which it has been extracted, or from the name of some characteristic property of the element or from some mythological name or from some person or place that is intended to be honored by this choice. The name of aluminium comes from the name of the aluminium sulfate in Latin, which was "alumin-". So "aluminium" means "something that is not aluminium sulfate, but it is related to aluminium sulfate". On the other hand, "aluminum", which lacks the derivation suffix, just means "aluminium sulfate" (which has become "alum" in English), but the noun has been converted from the 3rd Latin declension to the 2nd Latin declension. Such conversion between declensions were not unusual even for native Latin speakers. So this is definitely a grammar mistake, which is annoying for those who understand the meaning of words, because it creates an exception that must be remembered, instead of applying the general rule. In general the British and American scientists have always been much more lax in observing grammar rules than the continental Europeans. So there are also other chemical elements where the English names differ from the correct names. For instance the name of the chemical element "silicium" is derived from Latin "silic-" (flint), from which it is extracted, but in English it has been changed to "silicon", for the silly reason to make it rhyme with "carbon", despite the fact that most chemical properties of silicon resemble more those of boron or of phosphorus or of germanium, than those of carbon (because valence is only 1 of the 3 main properties that determine chemical behavior, electronegativity and ionic/atomic size are equally important). (Carbon is one of the few elements that were known in pure form already in the Ancient World, so its name is not derived from another noun.) ("Boron" has also been changed in English to make it rhyme with "carbon", which is equally baseless.)