this post was submitted on 05 May 2024
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Al i want yo know is how is it prnounced. Is the last i silent?
There is one i in Aluminum. It is not silent.
All the other elements use an i before the u. At some point we should fix the spelling: Helum, Sodum, Plutonum, etc
Oh, really?
The official IUPAC spelling is "Aluminium" - notice how there are two "I"s in there.
Since IUPAC is quite literally the international authority on chemical terminology, I'd suggest their spelling is the correct one.
If you want to spell it wrong, you do you, but don't act like it's the correct way to spell it.
The IUPAC can spell it how they like. But what is correct in language is determined by the way people use it, not whatever archaic rules your middleschool teacher told you (english) or some central authority publishes (looking at you French and Spanish).
A quick search of lemmy gives >75 pages of aluminum comments, and <35 pages of aluminium comments.
I'm sure that will change when American cultural hegemony fades, but for now, it is what it is.
Ah of course, the heavily American-centric forum is obviously the perfect way to prove the entirely American misspelling is the correct one /s
You can spell or pronounce Aluminium however you like, but there is only one internationally recognised spelling, and it's not "Aluminum"
Those "archaic rules" exist to standardise international science communication, not to make America feel better about its inability to standardise to save its life.
That may be their objective, but they've clearly failed and should be rewritten to reflect reality, evidenced by the fact that half of scientific journals use Aluminum.
Of course if you'd like to stick entirely with the academic prescriptions, you're free to not use "email" in French, singular they in English, AI instead of KI in Norwegian, or find a use for "coronabebe", a word that is only used by the Royal Spanish Academy and people mocking how detached they are.
Once again - American journals.
You're downright ignorant to suggest that because one country refuses to follow an internationally agreed upon naming scheme it should be rewritten to suit you. That's the kind of logic that should come from a little kid, not a country.
I don't have enough context about all the examples you list to make an informed opinion of them, but I can certainly take a crack at a couple...
Singular they was historically discouraged in academic writing as it was seen as informal, but doesn't mean it was never acknowledged.
It has been used, just not widely - though with an academic swing towards gender-neutral language, it is seen as acceptable by most academic style guides...
However, in the scientific world you're not really supposed to refer to yourself personally in papers in the first place, so it's about as accepted as any other pronoun.
That's not just a Norwegian thing, it's a difference due to language.
AI is not an internationally standardised terminology, so of course different languages with different component words and/or grammar are going to end up with different acronyms.
For example, the Germans and Dutch also refer to it as KI (though in Dutch AI is also acceptable), and in Spain and France IA is the standard - that doesn't mean that academics wouldn't just agree on a term when working internationally.
......
As said before, I don't know enough about the other examples to make informed discussion of them, but the examples I do have context for do not fall in the same category as America outright refusing to use internationally agreed upon terminology.
In any case, I don't think you're going to be convinced by any of the words I'm saying, nor do I think I'll be convinced by anything you could say, so I'm going to leave this here before I throw too much time into an endless back and forth.
If we're going by the way people use it, both are correct, because loads of people use both. As your search demonstrates. American cultural hegemony has not erased other varieties of English
It has also no erased other languages, many of which use (and pronounce) two i's.
Yes if you're American or Canadian, no if you're British, Australian, or New Zealander, and other varieties of English I'm afraid I'm not sure about. If you speak a variety that doesn't pronounce a second i, you probably also spell it without a second i
Not to mention many other languages that use two i's:
German, French: Aluminium Spanish, Portuguese: Aluminio Italian: Alluminio
Just to name a few.
'Aluminum' is just yet another instance where American English decided to be different for the sake of it, without any rhyme or reason.
The discoverer used both
I actually read somewhere that lots of those instances were actually England deciding to be different so they could look down on "the colonies." The extra u in color and favorite, all those random e's, etc. were actually added later to look "old-timey."
Now, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I can't be bothered to actually find a source, but I remember the source being trustworthy, so take that however you like.
First source I could find:
https://drawingsof.com/color-or-colour/
The claim on England looking down on the colonies wouldn't check out of you consider that -or in favour of -our is only used in the US, none of the other former colonies (not even Canada).
There you go. That's what I get for trusting random bits of unsourced memory.
You know, while sitting around avoiding work on a Monday, I remembered my source: some British dude living in the American Midwest talking about random words on YouTube (I think his channel is "Lost in the Pond" or something like that). The specifics he referenced were "axe/ax," "kerb/curb," and "tyre/tire." In each case, there was a settled spelling shared by British English and North American English (the latter of each pair), and for some reason England made up a new spelling or reverted to an even older spelling in the 19th century (Wikipedia source)
So I wasn't completely fabricating things, but it was much more specific than I remembered.
In most cases, it is clearly pronounced.