the discoverer, humphry davy, was english. the name is originally the english “alum” and the latin “ium”, which was criticized because names were traditionally constructed from latin roots. european scientists suggested “aluminium”, for “element created from alum”, but the year after that, when davy published a chemistry book, he spelled it “aluminum”. this took hold in britain, but the rest of europe used “aluminium” so they standardized.
a few years later, when the word first appeared in an american dictionary, only the “num” spelling was added. scientists kept using “-ium” but the general populace went on the dictionary definition until it won out. the “american” spelling was only accepted by american scientists about 110 years after the element was discovered.
and then scientific consensus made him change it. there was a clique of, quote, “patriotic” englishmen who, worried about “foreign influences”, kept using the misspelling, but they were very few and very much gone by the time the americans changed their minds.
Aluminum was the original name, YOU GUYS HAD TO GO AND CHANGE IT
Just like soccer.
Look the language is ours now england, you lost the right.
No, it’s was Alumium originally. So you guys changed it too, but decided to chsbge it to something worse.
i thought the original name was alumium?
Alumina ore was smelted/refined to isolate the pure metal.
Using the preexisting naming convention that ore->metal goes a->um, the discoverer of the element named it Aluminum.
Later, British chemists got mad that their US naming standard was different from their own standard.
no.
the discoverer, humphry davy, was english. the name is originally the english “alum” and the latin “ium”, which was criticized because names were traditionally constructed from latin roots. european scientists suggested “aluminium”, for “element created from alum”, but the year after that, when davy published a chemistry book, he spelled it “aluminum”. this took hold in britain, but the rest of europe used “aluminium” so they standardized.
a few years later, when the word first appeared in an american dictionary, only the “num” spelling was added. scientists kept using “-ium” but the general populace went on the dictionary definition until it won out. the “american” spelling was only accepted by american scientists about 110 years after the element was discovered.
So the guy who discovered it published a book and named his discovery in his book “aluminum”?
Well case closed. It’s aluminum.
and then scientific consensus made him change it. there was a clique of, quote, “patriotic” englishmen who, worried about “foreign influences”, kept using the misspelling, but they were very few and very much gone by the time the americans changed their minds.
Ya will Trump is going to rename it to Amerinum now.
check out number 95
No, it’s Aluminum of America.
Stuff does occasionally change
In like… Science
Yes, but when naming new things you typically go with… you know… the person that discovered and named it
Well they should have called it Ørstedium then, and people could refuse to call it that because nobody knows what Ø sounds like or how to type it.