Hi Fred
Remember this discussion?
>>>
>>>I wont even mention "aluminum". ;)
>>
>>Ah but you have!
>
>How else could I spell it without mentioning it? ;)
>
Well I've been reading Bill Bryson's "A short History of Everything" (In case you don't know hime he's an American committed anglophile who lives over here in preference to the US). In the book it turns out that the element Aluminium was discovered by the Brit scientist, Davy (I think he invented the original miner's lamp, famously, the so-called "Davy Lamp", but this was not all).
He originally called it
Alumium, but that wasn't liked.
So he changed it to
Aluminum which was readily taken up be the Americans (which it remains to this day).
However, the British scientific community objected, like I said to you, that it broke the continuum of "ium" words, like "Cadmium", "Thorium", etc. so he changed it to
Aluminium.
So there you have it! The American spelling was invented by a Brit! Case solved.
Cheers
Terry
- Whoever said that women are the weaker sex never tried to wrest the bedclothes off one in the middle of the night
- Worry is the interest you pay, in advance, for a loan that you may never need to take out.