• kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
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        17 days ago

        The one that gets me is they bitch about calling the season Fall. They claim that Americans are so basic and stupid that we can only think to name the season after the leaves falling. They think that the name Autumn (which we also use), borrowed from French, is a far better name for the season.

        First of all, we get it. You have your nose firmly up the collective asses of the French, Britain. It’s a very pretty language, but maybe you could stop butchering their language for 5 minutes if you’re going to be criticizing others for their English.

        Second, you are the ones who came up with the name “Fall”, Brits. Fall is indeed short for “The Fall of the Leaf”. That term predates the US entirely, by almost two centuries, at least. And while you may think to judge us for continuing to use such an obvious name, I have bad news. Because you still use its complement, Spring, short for “The Spring of the Leaf”. Say what you will about American English, but at least, in this, we’re consistent.

      • jqubed@lemmy.world
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        17 days ago

        A friend of mine from my TV days was working in South Africa when they hosted the association football World Cup and wound up talking to a woman who worked for the Football Association (the sport’s governing body in England and the reason the sport is called association football). She was angrily insisting to him that Americans invented the name “soccer” and that it never had that name in England. She might have been inebriated, but that was a lot to be confidently incorrect about her own employer.

      • Malgas@beehaw.org
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        18 days ago

        Aluminum by Davies, who first isolated it and therefore gets to name it. Then ‘alumunium’ by Wollaston, who didn’t and therefore doesn’t.

    • Deceptichum@quokk.au
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      18 days ago

      And the Americans started off by calling it Aluminium while the Brits called it Aluminum.

      Mr.Webster of dictionary fame decided to only use Aluminum in his publication so that took over.

      The Brits changed to using Aluminium after a German called it as such.

      • insomniac_lemon@lemmy.cafe
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        18 days ago

        Mr.Webster of dictionary fame decided to only use Aluminum in his publication so that took over.

        The bigger player here is probably Charles Martin Hall, who invented* a cheap method of refining it. Turns out yeah, if it’s marketed and sold as aluminum in the US that’s what people will know it as.

        Although I guess it is possible Webster’s dictionary influenced Hall’s naming choice.

        I wouldn’t mind if we went back to calling it alumium, though.

        * as a sidenote, also invented in France in the same year (coincidence) by Paul Héroult, thus called the Hall-Héroult process

    • Taniwha420@lemmy.world
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      17 days ago

      IIRC the -ium ending denotes a place of origin. I.e Magnesium was first find in Magnesia. Now, the Brits thought the -ium ending sounded posher, so they called it aluminium … but Alumnia isn’t a place, so they’re wrong.

        • m532@lemmy.ml
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          17 days ago

          We performed an autopsy on mendelev and found a new element in there

        • Taniwha420@lemmy.world
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          17 days ago

          They discovered those inside Mendel and Rutherford. … And there’s reason Uranium and Plutonium weren’t discovered until Bruce Willis went to space.

          You know what, it’s something I heard once, but doing some research it doesn’t really hold water.

    • Professorozone@lemmy.world
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      17 days ago

      Actually I believe it was pronounce alum first. It’s changed more than once. Anyway, the discoverer gets to name it.

        • Professorozone@lemmy.world
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          16 days ago

          Yeah, that’s my point. The world blames America for getting it wrong but it was really the discoverer that messed it up.

          • kerrigan778@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            16 days ago

            I mean… They didn’t really mess it up, Argentum, Molybdenum, Lanthanum, Aurum, Stannum

            It’s a pretty standard latin element naming, just not AS common as -ium.

            • Professorozone@lemmy.world
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              16 days ago

              Oh I agree with you. It’s the rest of the world that doesn’t seem to. And I kind of agree with them too. Let me 'splain.

              I think the Brits drive on the wrong side of the road. If you look at the origins of this you will find that they are actually driving on the correct side of the road and due to the evolution of the subject it is the rest of the world that messed it up. But… It’s the rest of the whole friggin world. I mean it’s just a handful of countries that drive on the left. Get your shit together people. So by that logic… aluminium.

    • purplemonkeymad@programming.dev
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      17 days ago

      I heard it was a bad transmission of the telegram announcing it’s discovery. The Americans got it without the I so just started using that word instead. Everyone else got the correct word.

      • syreus@lemmy.world
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        17 days ago

        This is not true. The initial discoverer, Sir Humphrey Davy, named it alumium and later changed it to aluminum. British chemists changed the name adding the I. Websters dictionary sealed the deal in 1925 by standardizing the name.

  • Filthmontane@lemmy.zip
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    18 days ago

    So true! The next three elements that come right after it are Siliconium, Phosphorusium, and Sulfurium! So why wouldn’t it be Aluminium?! LOL

    • Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      18 days ago

      You know the funny thing about that is some Minecraft mods use Bauxite as the name for the ore and ingots to sidestep the debate on how to spell/pronounce the metal lol

            • Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              17 days ago
              1. It’s pseudocode, since I don’t know how to program in Java

              2. Technically no, because it’s not modifying the item’s forge dictionary internal ID, just the displayed string in the two-word combination (IE: “Bauxite Ingot” -> “Aluminum Ingot”)

              • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                16 days ago

                Hey fair enough, its been… a number of years since I ran a MC server!

                I … don’t actually remember the precise syntax anymore either, lol.

    • Hyperrealism@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      16 days ago

      Potassium (K) is called Kalium in New Latin and a variation thereof in plenty of languages. It makes far more sense. The symbol’s K in the periodic table an the eymological link with alkali is in the word. The Brits don’t have a leg to stand on.

      Then again, Americans are stupid about the metric system. Think they can’t visualize what 1 meter is, but almost every American can visualize the length of an M16A4 just fine.

      • infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net
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        16 days ago

        Most Americans aren’t actually too biased against metric, I’d say that’s a stereotype boosted by an extremely vocal minority. The real problem is that most of us can’t visualize the length of a yard or mile any better than we can a meter or kilometer. It’s more an across the board lack of education.

  • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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    18 days ago

    You know what really grinds my gears as a non-native speaker? Salmon. Why in the motherfuckium does that word have a silent L?? Get a spelling reform you assholes.

        • NewSocialWhoDis@lemmy.zip
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          17 days ago

          TBF, Americans say Loo-ten-unt. I don’t know where the British got the F, but you can’t use the meme from the post for it!

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            16 days ago

            Because the position was literally the “left tenet of the king.” His most trusted advisor would be on his right tenant and the left would be the person protecting his blind non dominant side.

            Now funny enough both Leuf and lieu spellings exist since about the same time. The lieu tenant comes from the French “in lieu of,” so in lieu of the king that was the next commander. I am not etymologist but from what I understand both explanations are correct. Basically convergent evolution of the word and its meaning.

        • NewSocialWhoDis@lemmy.zip
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          18 days ago

          Apparently “coronel” was first borrowed from French. No surprise there I guess, with the superfluous vowel in the middle.

          • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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            18 days ago

            But the spelling is fucked up because they changed the spelling to the Italian one without changing the pronounciation. It’s like the worst of both worlds, the “worlds” being “keep the French version” and “change spelling and pronounciation to the Italian version”.

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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            17 days ago

            All the weird words for military purposes especially relating to officer ranks come from french. You can blame the Normans (and by extension once again everything is scandavia’s fault) or that whole time period where England and France were basically constantly at war, or once again everything is Napoleon’s fault.

            France had a long period as the dominant land power of Europe and that resulted in a lot of military organization words in most European languages being pulled from them. It’s similar to how a lot of military traditions and styles come from Prussia.

      • Bennyboybumberchums@lemmy.world
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        17 days ago

        “Why hello there, KERNULL! How goes the war?”

        Apparently the word had quite the journey on its way to American mouths. It seems to have started its life in Italian as “colonnello,” meaning “column of soldiers,” derived from “colonna” meaning “column”. And then the French got a hold of it… I believe I dont need to explain any further why the word became so fucked… lol.

        • scutiger@lemmy.world
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          17 days ago

          The word in French is pronounced exactly the way it’s spelled, with the same linguistic origins as in Italian. It’s really the British that fucked up the pronunciation all on their own.

      • bss03@infosec.pub
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        17 days ago

        Sometimes, I intentionally pronounce the ‘b’ in “subtle”, just to make it clear I’m not.

        • Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world
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          17 days ago

          Where’s my “Wed-nes-day” crew? I can’t be the only one who likes to phonetically pronounce that day.

          See also: Feb-ru-ar-y

          And for bonus points: my brother insists that “grand prix” be pronounced as grand pricks. I can’t deny his logic.

          • bobgobbler@lemmy.zip
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            16 days ago

            I literally couldn’t pronounce that word as a child from like 8-16 once I saw the N. My brain would automatically split it into 3 syllables

      • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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        17 days ago

        I guess I’m numb to -ough because it’s a relatively common letter sequence in English, i.e. it kind of follows a rule, but salmon is pretty much unique. And ‘through’ doesn’t have that absurd origin of “let’s add a silent letter to make it more similar to latin”.

  • Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz
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    17 days ago

    You’re right, we should fix that. Helum, Lithum, Beryllum, Sodum, Magnesum.

    We should also fix Platinium and Lanthanium.

  • hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    18 days ago

    I don’t care which you use for alu

    But if you’re one of those who call it alloy, then I hope you step on a Lego.

    Alloy is a mixture of different materials, not short for aluminium

    • mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca
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      18 days ago

      who the fuck calls aluminum alloy

      I have never heard of this before

      I think you’d get laughed out of the room if you said that around us

      • sobchak@programming.dev
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        17 days ago

        IDK if I’ve heard aluminum by itself called an alloy. I do know that steel wheels are typically not called “alloy wheels” for some reason; that’s reserved for wheels made from an aluminum alloy.

      • infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net
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        17 days ago

        Bike parts. Lots of bike parts are made of aluminum-based mystery alloy so they’re marketed as just “alloy”. It’s pretty annoying when you’re a casual builder who actually cares what your bike is made out of.