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.....