We canadians also say Aluminum and I would like to be represented in this comic as a target of mockery alongside the US thank you.
Ralkalest
I’m gonna take this chance to air my personal grievance with “Iodine”, which is commonly pronounced (in the US at least) “aye-o-dine”, but if we look at all of the other halogen, their “-ine” ending is pronounced “-een”, and therefore iodine should clearly be pronounced “aye-o-deen”.
Iodinium
Always find it funny how the French and British traditionally hate on each other but the British will defend to the death the stupid French shit we stole for our language
the amount of times I’ve seen people get pissed off at the American English removal of the useless “u” is actually fucking silly
I mean we hate on the french, but it’s mostly good natured ribbing. Also wasn’t most of the french imposed on us post invasion rather than stealing?
Go and get some platinium and if you want to go old fashioned you may like aurium.
You should just be happy that we aren’t all still calling it “tin.”
I dunno, I still frequently hear the term “tin can” used to refer to aluminum cans.
Sorry, I’m siding with my American compatriots on this one. Yours sounds silly.
“Aluminium” sounds like something a fantasy writer would call aluminum in their novel just to make it sound magical.
Am I the only one who finds differences in american vs british english cool, instead of a reason to be a dick
Let’s table that discussion.
Tap for spoiler
The meanings of “table” as a verb in US vs UK parliamentary usage are literally opposites. With the US meaning being to stop discussing or put aside for later, while the UK version means to begin discussing.
This actually caused confusion during allied meetings in WWII.
Dubya would start a nukular war over it.
Aluminium is not the -ium of alumin
Aluminium is the genericitation of aluminum.
The actual -ium is of alum. The original name is alumium.
Aluminum is a modification of alumiun, not aluminium
You could be right.
However. It’s the internet and I can’t read
Oxygen-ium
I expected Walter in the meme.
Didnt excpect the element symbol in the gif
No notes
LMAO
It confused me a bit when reading the Mistborn series. Wtf is aluminum and why have i never heard of that? Do they just call Aluminium differently because of story reasons? Did i miss something? Are the other metals correct?
Good books tho
Aluminum is the original name for the element. It was changed to be more in line with the others in its group.
Like in the tv shows when they say “epinephrine”, and I was like wtf is that? for years.
And later on with the amazing metal called tungsten. Why have I never heard of it?
(Its andrenaline and wolfram)
Acetaminophen / Paracetamol is probably the one I see the most.
Bendalloy is a commercial name, which is for the best because we’d hate for Wayne to burn Wood’s metal
If you hate Americans because of this, of all things, then you’re going to lose your mind when you find out about everything that’s happened this year.
Or the last 200 years.
What gets me is an Americanism that seems to have only taken hold in the last 10 years or so - Normalcy. Apparently it’s been in use since 1920 but I’m sure it’s only recently become ubiquitous in the US. The word is NORMALITY my American friends. Normalcy is a horrible Frankenstien word which sounds and looks horrible written. =p
“Normalcy” was regarded as a mistake for ages and they took the piss out of people for using it, but then it gradually took over. It does sound exactly like a toddler forgetting “normality” and just making something up though.
I know someone that has started saying “normalicy” and I want to scream every time
39 yo American. This is the first time I have ever seen or heard of the word normality… And I read a decent amount of British regency literature.
So normalcy is normality for you? Fascinating! =D
Read hitch hikers guide to the galaxy
We say it the original correct way in the US. Other countries changed it for some reason. The guy that discovered it in 1808, Sir Humphrey Davy named it “Alumium” which based on Alumen (Latin for bitter salt)but quickly changed it to “Aluminum”. I swear I remember reading that he kept getting shit on by the science community and his friends for naming a metal “bitter salt” in Latin … but can’t find a reference.
His colleagues in Britain did mess with him and start using the name “Aluminium” … exactly because it ended in “ium” like ALL the other elements (Oxygenium, Carbonium, Ironium, Zincium, Nitrogenium, and the like). They US just kept the name the discoverer wanted instead of giving into those British asshats that just wanted to troll Sir Davy.
He also isolated Magnesium and named it “magnium”, but later changed to magnesium. The guy just couldnt settle on names. Again, in my version of reality it is because his friends kept giving him shit.
We say it the original correct way in the US
.
Sir Humphrey Davy named it “Alumium”
I explained the whole naming process. You gotta read it. The US was given the name as Aluminum and did not change it when the British changed it a third time.
But aluminum is nit the original name and you explain that. It’s also not the correct way either.
Dude, seriously — say the words in your head as you read them.
Alumium is the original name. You can’t explicity say that and then also argue that Aluminum is the original. It’s a direct contradiction.
‘This just in, new evidence suggests that Tolkien’s working title for ‘The Lord of the Rings’ was ‘Guy With Rings Wants to Conquer the World’. According to gmtom - this is what we should call ‘The Lord of the Rings’ from now on, because it’s the original name.’
Edit: stop
Welcome to ignore. Everyone else understood the discussion … you are the outlier.
They US just kept the name the discoverer wanted instead of giving into those British asshats that just wanted to troll Sir Davy.
It probably wasnt really a willful defiance thing. It’s likely more correct to say that we kept the name because by the time they changed it officially in Europe, we had millions of students across the country that had textbooks with the name Aluminum in it, that had already been taught the original name, and if the inconsistentcy was even important enought to consider “correcting”, it was likely deemed too costly and too much of a headache to change at the time. By the time people were buying reprints/new editions/more recently written textbooks anyway, professional chemists in the US had been calling it Aluminum for years. Given how isolated we were from Europe in the early 1800s, there was very little pressure to align with them on it, and so it stayed. The longer it stayed the more likely it was to be permanent, and here we are.
But yeah, Sir Humphrey Davy was an indecisive wishy-washy namer of elements, disseminated multiple names across the world, but somehow that is our fault when we just stuck with the one we were given and everyone else changed over nitpicky conventions. It’s not the only thing that Brits shit on about American English that is entirely their invention or their mistake:
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“Soccer” being a British term short for “Association Football”
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The season “Fall” being a British term shortened from the phrase “The Fall of the Leaf” and directly complementary to “Spring” which comes from the phrase “The Spring of the Leaf”, which they still use despite making fun of Americans for “Fall” instead of their “Autumn”, which Americans also use.
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“Dove” instead of “dived”, “pled” instead of “pleaded”, “have gotten” instead of “have got”, etc. all started in Britain but were dropped there and stayed in the US.
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“Herb” being pronounced with an audible “h”. The word is borrowed from French, where the h is silent, exactly like , “honorary”, and “honesty”. Neither country pronounces either of those words with an “h” sound, but that doesnt stop people like Eddie Izzard shitting on how Americans say it with a silent “h” despite the American pronunciation being, arguably, more correct given the word’s origins.
Side note, it is crazy how many words in English are borrowed from French, even if they are horribly mangled and unrecognizable now in a lot of cases. The British Aristocracy really had their noses shoved firmly up French asses for a lot of their history in the last few centuries.
I suspect that if the US had adopted the name “Aluminium” Britain would have changed it again and they would be making fun of us for not calling it “Aluminiumium”.
I think Americans vastly overestimate how much Brits care about spiting them. If anything it would be more likely for the Americans to change the name to be different from the Brits.
I think you’ll enjoy this: Silent Letter Day.
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