A MASSIVE apology to all Americans re: Aluminum......

[Pert_UK]

For as long as I can remember I have been slagging off (criticising harshly) the American people for mispronouncing "aluminium".

However, I received Bill Bryson's "A Short History of nearly Everything" for Christmas and it turns out, to my horror, that you guys have been right all along:

"When Humphrey Davy first isolated the element in 1808, he called it alumium. For some reason he thought better of that, and four years later changed the name to aluminum. Americans dutifully adopted the new term, but British users disliked 'aluminum', pointing out that it disrupted the '-ium' pattern established by sodium, calcium and strontium, so they added a vowel and a syllable."

(Can't be bothered to quote exactly, but it's near enough...Black Swan press, if you're interested...and it is a fantastic read).

I am a massive wanker, as are my forbears......let alone my four bears, but that's an entirely different story.....

BTW - I'm sticking with our extra 'u's, plus 's' rather than 'z' in criticising.....

[Renew Deal]

1. Apology accepted

:hug:

[BurtWorm]

2. You mean "a wankium."

Don't you? :o

[billyskank]

36. No, we call it "wankinium"

:P

[trof]

3. We're not ALWAYS right, but we're never wrong.

[Deja Q]

4. I prefer 'aluminium'... sounds much more cool and, besides,

I grew up watching a lot of PBS. :D Never mind the logical reasons...

Please keep the "u"'s, "s"'s, the extra "i"s, "Zed"'s as necessary, and so on. :D :thumbsup: ("Zed" is much better way to say "Z", U C? :7 Of course you do, the Brits invented "Zed". :D )

And what's wrong with being a wanker? But I won't go there right now... O8)

[Richardo]

5. Thanks for that explanation. I could never figure out WHY Brits insisted

...on the wrong pronunciation when there is plainly no -ium at the end of that word.


I've heard great things about the Bryson book. :thumbsup:

[Spider Jerusalem]

6. Well, the Americans are the only ones who spell it that way...

so, when the rest of the world does it differently (including IUPAC) then maybe the Americans are wrong after all...

[SemiCharmedQuark]

7. Excellent! I can't wait to tell my husband!

He's always nagging me about that (he's a Brummie).

[Pert_UK]

12. No way!

I'm nearly a Brummie!......

Tell him me and EarlG grew up on Banks's in the Black Country!

Ee ay arf allroit if ees a Brummie!

[SemiCharmedQuark]

29. He's from Stourbridge.

His last girlfriend was from Leeds and about 3/4 conversation from her was wailing on the Brummie accent.

The other thing he always nags me about is H being pronounced "Aytch" instead of the British "Haytch" and the "silent" h in "herbs" "honest" etc.

[Pert_UK]

30. I say again....NO WAY!!!!!!!!

I'm originally from Stourbridge.........Roughly how old is your husband, I might have gone to school with him?!?!?

FYI I'm 30.

On edit.....If he's from Stourbridge, he's not really a Brummie...He's from the Black Country!

[SemiCharmedQuark]

35. He's 24

He went to The Grange. His older brother and sister are in their 30s, and went to Red Hill School. He knows he's not a Brummie, but you try explaining where Stourbridge is to an American. Birmingham is just a little easier. (By the way, I'm typing this for him, and I take offense that he has to dumb it down for me! But then I guess I understand. We can't go anywhere without someone saying 1.) Where is that accent from? 2.) I know someone from England! Do you know John so-and-so!?)

[Pert_UK]

37. Now THAT is scary........

I lived down the road from The Grange, near the Junction Station. I even went to Tae Kwon Do lessons there in the evenings for a while....(at the Grange, not the station - that would have been odd). I went to Redhill School and must have left there in 1990...I've got friends from several school years above me though. My mum and dad still live in Stourbridge.

EarlG grew up in Stourbridge too - we were great mates for years until he moved to the States, although I did see him over Christmas during a flying visit.

What a small world!

I think I'd prefer to continue this discussion via PM or email if that's OK with you....I'll drop you a mail or PM ASAP.

P.

[tjwmason]

33. The letter 'H' is aitch not haitch

It is silent in honest (and of course honoUr), but not in herbs.

[trof]

8. Could we talk about "biscuits"?

Over here they are NOT cookies.
More like scones.
BTW, is that "skones" or "skahns"?

[Pert_UK]

18. I'd say "skonn" others say "skone" a la "bone"....wankers the lot of them

:evilgrin:

Must admit to being horribly confused by "biscuits and gravy"....WTF?

P.

[crispini]

21. Oh, yum, biscuits and gravy.

But biscuits aren't really scone-like, they're not sweet. More like bread. Dee-lish.

[omulcol]

20. The Queen would pronounce them as ....

Scorns.

And Roundabouts as Rindabites !!

[Der Blaue Engel]

28. I think I shall have to punch the Queen

Who would scorn a scone? Silly bitch.

[Pert_UK]

32. Reminds me of the 2 Ronnies sketch....

Hello, I'd like to buy some tiles...

Our decorating department is on the 2nd floor.

No...tiles! You dry yourself with them after a barth.....

[Sporadicus]

9. My Co-Worker Says Aluminium

and he's American. He's also the resident expert in the metal. He did work for some time in Canada, however; apparently it stuck with him.

[WritersBlock]

10. You don't need to apologiSe.

I was informed quite forcefully by a tutor that "aluminium" is the official way that the international chemistry bigwigs governing body (didn't do so well in the course, y'see) have decided it should be spelled.

[Born in the Maze]

11. Now can we talk about "viy-tuh-mihn" vs

"vih-tuh-muhn"? I was taught the word is a compound of "vital minerals".

[Pert_UK]

13. Don't get me started on "oregg-an-o" vs "orry-gar-no"..,or "bay-sel"

For fuck's sake........

[Shakespeare]

15. Y'all are giving me Eddie Izzard flashbacks....

LOVE his bit about the difference between UK and US pronunciations.

"You say 'erb,' we say 'HHHHerb.' Because it's got a fucking H in it."

[Pert_UK]

17. Mais le singe est dans l'arbre........

:evilgrin:

[Shakespeare]

19. Le singe est sur la branche!!

Quoi?

[Huckebein the Raven]

27. avec le president de Burundi

[jmowreader]

22. The "vital" part is good...

the "amin" was originally "amine." It seems that the people who discovered vitamins originally thought they were amino acids (a molecule consisting of an amine at one end, a carboxyl at the other and a "side group" that determines which amino acid it is)--hence, vitamines or "vital amino acids."

Then they found out that the only vitamin that was rightly a "vitamine" was Thiamine, which is an amino acid, so they dropped the last E to make Vitamin.

[DrWeird]

14. I heard a different explanation.

That being that there was a typo in some major american media, and we Americans have been using it ever since.

There's a large amount of experimental data showing that Americans are indeed idiots.

[trotsky]

16. Yeah that's what I heard too.

We ended up being "right"? That IS news.

[hickman1937]

23. All of this is neither here nor there,

I have to admire people who eat with a tool in each fist.:P :hi:

[tjwmason]

34. I just can't understand why you only use the fork

When compared with the extraordinary simplicity of knife and fork, cutting and eating all in one; the wrestling which occurs trying to eat a meal with only one is most bizarre.

Oh and I still insist on aluminium.

[hickman1937]

38. I read somewhere that it started

because people had to share knives in the colonial days. Also the bench seating was not conducive to two fisted dining. Isolation and rebellion made it custom. I don't have the source though.

[SOteric]

24. I actually knew that. Tried to convince a Brit friend of it once.

He was having none of it.

:shrug:

[Elidor]

25. It's minor details like this

That led to the collapse of the British empire. DO try to keep up, sport. If you folk could speak correctly, half the world would still call you Bwana.

Instead of Limeys.

:evilgrin:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

26. Oh, is THAT whose fault it is?

Should have known. :-)

[TyeDye75]

31. What about 'Caribbean' though

[IronLionZion]

39. Once we thought we were wrong

but we were mistaken :P

apology accepted. A round of New Castles for everyone! you're buying you jolly old wanker! :toast: