Personally, I prefer a more authoritative source than Google, but it is
almost the same story:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/aluminum-vs-aluminium
Tony Thigpen
Bob Bridges wrote on 7/19/20 6:09 PM:
Because I know you were all breathlessly awaiting the verdict on the great
"aluminum"/"aluminium" controversy, I went to find more information. At
https://books.google.com/books?id=YjMwAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA201 you can find a page in _Elements of Chemical
Philosophy_ by Humphrey Davy (who first isolated aluminum), published in 1812; here he talks about
"aluminum" (a metal to be found in alumina, which in turn was processed from alum). Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium) says this about the name:
"British chemist Humphry Davy, who performed a number of experiments aimed to
isolate the metal, is credited as the person who named the element. In 1808, he suggested
the metal be named alumium in an article on his electrochemical research which was
published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. This suggestion was
criticized by contemporary chemists from France, Germany, and Sweden, who insisted the
metal should be named for the oxide, alumina, from which it would be isolated. In 1812,
Davy published a chemistry textbook in which he settled on the name aluminum, thus
producing the modern name. However, its spelling and pronunciation varies: aluminum is in
use in the United States and Canada while aluminium is in use elsewhere."
That sounds plausible to me.
---
Bob Bridges, robhbrid...@gmail.com, cell 336 382-7313
/* It's ok to doubt your beliefs; but it's not ok to believe your doubts. -Jim
Snider, pastor, 2000-12-10 */
-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Bridges [mailto:robhbrid...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2020 17:34
Aha! Yet a third story; in this one Davy started out with "aluminum" and the
Europeans ~added~ the 'i'.
-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Joe Monk
Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2020 07:22
The British Scientist (Davy) who discovered ALUMINUM named it that. It is
we Americans who are using the correct name ... the British press felt that
it should be in line with sodium and potassium and thus added to the
spelling.
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