• Hyperrealism@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    16 days ago

    I’m honestly a fan of having the option to use standardised/latinised chemical element names.

    Cu = Cuprum = Copper.

    Hg = Hydrargyrum = Mercury. Hydrargyrum is still sometimes (very very rarely) used in English.

    Pb = Plumbum = Lead. The French for lead is plomb, for example. Would clear up a lot of confusion with homographs. We already use plumb in English, as in plumb line. (The fact that it’s plumbum, not plumbium, does undermine the whole aluminium>aluminum argument obviously).

    Argentum instead of silver. Plenty of languages use a variation of that already. English already uses argent in some contexts, like heraldry.

    Same thing for natrium instead of sodium, also common to have a variation of that in plenty of languages.

    IRC Silicium was the originally proposed name for silicon. Plenty of languages also use a variation of that.

    • collapse_already@lemmy.ml
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      16 days ago

      I picked these various elements because they end in -um rather than -ium when described by their Latin names. Because I think it is funny to complain about aluminum ending in -um.

      • Hyperrealism@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        16 days ago

        TBH in the past, I’ve argued both for the -um ending, and for the -ium ending. It really annoys some people. It’s even more annoying, when they realise that you’ve managed to annoy them with such a pedantic point.

        Another one is skeptical/sceptical. “I think you’ll find it comes from the Greek, so it should be with a k.”

        Or the plural octopus. “I think you’ll find it comes from the Greek, so it’s octopodes. Octopi is certainly wrong, because it doesn’t come from latin.”

        I think I may be an energy vampire.