[Sca-cooks] Reptilian Pronunciation (was Drive up ATM's OT, OOP (was Languages)

[Philippa Alderton]

From:

http://nautilus.fis.uc.pt/st2.5/scenes-e/elem/e01310.html

The metal derives its name from alumen, the Latin name
for alum. In 1761 L. B. G de Morveau proposed the name
alumine for the base in alum, and in 1787 Lavoisier
definitely identified it as the oxide of a still
undiscovered metal. In 1807 Sir Humphrey Davy proposed
the name aluminum for this metal and later agreed to
change it to aluminum. Shortly thereafter, the name
aluminium was adopted to conform to the "ium" ending
of most elements, and this spelling is now in general
use throughout the world. Aluminum was also the
accepted spelling in the United States until 1925 when
the American Chemical Society officially reverted to
aluminum.

Phlip


--- Jane Williams <jane at williams.nildram.co.uk> wrote:
> Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> wrote :
> > >The metal? The one I'd spell aluminium? (And,
> come to think of it, the
> > init=> >ial "u" *would* sound like "oo" in this
> case.
> >
> > It does. But it is frequently pronounced
> al-yew-min-i-um, which is
> > simply incorrect, on more than one count.
>
> "Incorrect" in what sense? And what are the other
> counts?
>
> > You _are_ using their language, or at least a part
> of it.
> No, I'm using English. It's the only language I can
> claim to know.
>
> > what I object to is ... the implication that South
> Americans who fail
> > to pronounce "jaguar" as "jag-yew-ar" and North
> Americans who don't
> > pronounce "aluminum" as "al-yew-min-i-um" are
> pronouncing those words
> > incorrectly.
>
> Surely they're pronouncing them correctly for their
> language? Which is different from mine? "Derived
> from" does not mean "identical to", after all.
> Otherwise we'd have to insist on Americans putting
> that unnecessary "u" back into "color" and so on,
> because it's derived from a French word that keeps
> (and needs) the U :) And most of English would have
> to return to its French/Norse/etc origins...  aargh!
>
>
> > Possibly. Each is consistent with examples from
> its source language,
> > if not with those from others.
>
> Well, that's good news.
>
> > Probably. Actually even the spelling in Middle
> English is a lot more
> > consistent than a lot of people make it out to be,
> at least within
> > individual documents, so obviously the writers of
> the documents felt
> > that spelling counted.
>
> Yes, it's not all *that* bad. Just enough variation
> to make it fun.
>
>
>
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=====
Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....

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