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submitted 2 days ago by Stamets@lemmy.world to c/memes@sopuli.xyz
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[-] Tier1BuildABear@lemmy.world 85 points 2 days ago

Aluminum was the original name, YOU GUYS HAD TO GO AND CHANGE IT

[-] Doom@ttrpg.network 18 points 2 days ago

Just like soccer.

Look the language is ours now england, you lost the right.

[-] lime@feddit.nu 7 points 2 days ago

i thought the original name was alumium?

[-] deegeese@sopuli.xyz 16 points 2 days ago

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.

[-] lime@feddit.nu 8 points 2 days ago

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.

[-] AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago

Wait, so the original name is alumium? Fuck yeah! From now on I'll go with that one!

[-] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 19 points 2 days ago

So the guy who discovered it published a book and named his discovery in his book "aluminum"?

Well case closed. It's aluminum.

[-] lime@feddit.nu -3 points 1 day ago

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.

[-] NatakuNox@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

Ya will Trump is going to rename it to Amerinum now.

[-] dadarobot@lemmy.sdf.org 14 points 2 days ago

check out number 95

[-] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago

No, it's Aluminum of America.

[-] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Stuff does occasionally change

In like... Science

[-] Tier1BuildABear@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

Yes, but when naming new things you typically go with.... you know.... the person that discovered and named it

[-] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

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.

[-] lime@feddit.nu 2 points 14 hours ago

it's simple! it's like the i in stir, or the e in germ, or the u in turn, or the a in earth.

[-] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 1 points 14 hours ago

It actually would be a way cooler name for the element.

[-] gmtom@lemmy.world -3 points 1 day ago

No, it's was Alumium originally. So you guys changed it too, but decided to chsbge it to something worse.

this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2025
534 points (88.8% liked)

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