(August 14, 2016 at 11:33 am)pocaracas Wrote:(August 14, 2016 at 11:12 am)Whateverist Wrote: I think the colour (sic) of your spelling is as strange as your pronunciation of aluminum. (Notice there is only one "i" at the end of that word and it is too busy providing the "min" we agree on to also offer the "i-um" you give it.)
The other day, I heard a story about the aluminum/aluminium split.
The way it went was:
Way back when the stuff was "discovered", the British guy that did it named it "Aluminum". This word traveled to the US and there took hold.
In comes a guy (possibly the same one) who looked at the other metals and noticed that they had a certain ending... the -ium, as in chromium, Callium, Germanium, Indium, Vanadium, Titanium, Lithium, Magnesium, Potassium, Calcium, etc...
So he decided to make Aluminum end in -ium.... and came up with Aluminium.
That came to be the official English spelling of the element.
But the US had already been contaminated by Aluminum and cared not for "official English"...
Well then by the rule of "black, black, no takes back" the spelling must remain as we 'muricans spell and say it.