Excerpt from WordOrigins.org: 

In 1808, British chemist Humphry Davy postulated the existence of a metallic 
form of alumina ore, which he dubbed alumium. 

Davy later changed the name to aluminum. He writes in his 1812 Elements of 
Chemical Philosophy: "As yet Aluminum has not been obtained in a perfectly free 
state."

Yet that same year, other British chemists settled on the name aluminium, the 
ending of which they thought was more consistent with the other elements. 

So the theoretical substance was dubbed Aluminum first, but other scientists 
decided to call it Aluminium, even though no one knew if it existed or could 
exist yet. 

Bob S



> On Sep 6, 2022, at 13:38 , Mark Wieder via use-livecode 
> <use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:
> 
> On 9/6/22 13:19, Mike Kerner via use-livecode wrote:
> 
>> or the way they spell "favourites", or pronounce "Aluminum". Do you see an
>> extra "i" in there? No? It's invisible, that's why.
> 
> Yeah. About that.
> The "aluminium" version actually preceded "aluminum" by several years, so if 
> anything the U.S. version is actually the weird one. There are very few other 
> elements that veer from the standard "ium" suffix into just "um": molybdenum, 
> lanthanum,, tantalum, platinum, and all of those are transition metals.
> 
> https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/aluminum-vs-aluminium
> 
> -- 
> Mark Wieder
> ahsoftw...@gmail.com


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