Hoi Art

[mjmacky]

I personally want to change sulphur sulfur back to brimstone to not offend the theological amongst us.

[Artemis]

As far as I recall, the ACS switch to Aluminum had to do with the decided spelling in our dictionaries. Nowadays, most major journals (e.g. JACS, obviously, ECS, Talanta) and vendors use Aluminum (e.g. Sigma-Aldrich), so it comes across as a bit archaic when someone says aluminium among chemists. Chemists being the only people that matter when it comes to elemental nomenclature

Who decided to spell it differently?, or rather which Dictionary decided to randomly diverge to the point? I mean it is actually kind of bizarre that the ACS needed to rename the element.

Now I'm not a Chemist myself I will admit, but my best friend at University was a chem major, and because he ran into it alot more while being taught another way, it irritated him a great deal more than me. Me I just think sounds retarded. The other metallic elements all end in -ium, except for one, in America, where it was changed in 1925, for a not very satisfactory reason so far.....

[mjmacky]

Who decided to spell it differently?, or rather which Dictionary decided to randomly diverge to the point? I mean it is actually kind of bizarre that the ACS needed to rename the element.

Now I'm not a Chemist myself I will admit, but my best friend at University was a chem major, and because he ran into it alot more while being taught another way, it irritated him a great deal more than me. Me I just think sounds retarded. The other metallic elements all end in -ium, except for one, in America, where it was changed in 1925, for a not very satisfactory reason so far.....

I can only assume the dictionary made the decision based on the earlier use of Aluminum. They could have almost used Alumium if they wanted, but I didn't work for a dictionary firm in the early 1900s, so I'm only speculating.

Also, you overlooked one of my points, being that Aluminum is not the only -um. Platinum, Molybdenum and Tantalum. The first two cannot be considered obscure exceptions. There is a particular methodology for how we arrive at -um. It's based on the nomenclature of oxide salts or metallic alloys. Whereas, you have magnesia and calcia salts, you have alumina and platina salts or alloys (something denoting impurity). Take something very similar to platina, palladia, and you can see how that yields platinum and palladium, respectively, when referring to the pure substance.

[Artemis]

Who decided to spell it differently?, or rather which Dictionary decided to randomly diverge to the point? I mean it is actually kind of bizarre that the ACS needed to rename the element.

Now I'm not a Chemist myself I will admit, but my best friend at University was a chem major, and because he ran into it alot more while being taught another way, it irritated him a great deal more than me. Me I just think sounds retarded. The other metallic elements all end in -ium, except for one, in America, where it was changed in 1925, for a not very satisfactory reason so far.....

I can only assume the dictionary made the decision based on the earlier use of Aluminum. They could have almost used Alumium if they wanted, but I didn't work for a dictionary firm in the early 1900s, so I'm only speculating.

Also, you overlooked one of my points, being that Aluminum is not the only -um. Platinum, Molybdenum and Tantalum. The first two cannot be considered obscure exceptions. There is a particular methodology for how we arrive at -um. It's based on the nomenclature of oxide salts or metallic alloys. Whereas, you have magnesia and calcia salts, you have alumina and platina salts or alloys (something denoting impurity). Take something very similar to platina, palladia, and you can see how that yields platinum and palladium, respectively, when referring to the pure substance.

It actually took awhile to find your reference to Molybdenum and Platinum it was rather obscure when speed reading, had to go back and search s l o w l y dammit, sometimes you are too subtle for me.

Now while these are all valid points, it just fascinates me that almost one hundred years after the fact the American Chemical Society suddenly went 'I know, let's change the name, and while we're at it World, you can learn to say the same way too, because we are going to be the masters of the universe and our word is final!

[mjmacky]

Still, the adoption has been more gradual. The U.S. does host many of the major journals with, and I feel personal discomfort in uttering this, high impact factors. I fucking hate IF's, but it's relevant in terms of propagation.

[Artemis]

Still, the adoption has been more gradual insidious. The U.S. does host many of the major journals with, and I feel personal discomfort in uttering this, high impact factors. I fucking hate IF's, but it's relevant in terms of propagation.

Fixed that for ya.

[mjmacky]

And to stamp a conclusion on all of this.

I don't really care about the U.S. and its cultural imperialism, but I like to think that researchers can set their own trends outside of nationality. We are making up terms all the time to label phenomena, factors and materials. Sometimes many synonymous variations coexist, and people tend to stick to favorites for some underlying reason. For instance, I'm trying to get everyone in our group to adhere to the usage of "coinage metals" to categorize the types of metals we implement in Raman signal enhancement. Why? Because it's the most unifying term when we want to list anything beyond Group 11 metals. Some people tend to use "noble metals", which is very misleading. Anyways, I'll cut this anecdote short before Idol finds me.

Also, I came close to calling you Darth Aluminium Dave, but I couldn't figure out a way to do it without sounding incredibly mean-spirited :/

[Artemis]

And to stamp a conclusion on all of this.

I don't really care about the U.S. and its cultural imperialism, but I like to think that researchers can set their own trends outside of nationality. We are making up terms all the time to label phenomena, factors and materials. Sometimes many synonymous variations coexist, and people tend to stick to favorites for some underlying reason. For instance, I'm trying to get everyone in our group to adhere to the usage of "coinage metals" to categorize the types of metals we implement in Raman signal enhancement. Why? Because it's the most unifying term when we want to list anything beyond Group 11 metals. Some people tend to use "noble metals", which is very misleading. Anyways, I'll cut this anecdote short before Idol finds me.

Also, I came close to calling you Darth Aluminium Dave, but I couldn't figure out a way to do it without sounding incredibly mean-spirited :/

I personally don't think the U.S. has much of a culture to export anyway that isn't controlled sanitised and packaged by corporations willing to sell just about anything to make a percentage point in their market grouping, and some of it is just deeply moronic.

I do however understand your point about researchers 'making up terms all the time to label phenomena...' , perfectly understandable.
I still find it weird that an institute decreed that it would use an older name for a metal 98 years after that had been codified into the periodic table, that is a totally different and separate argument to the one you present, it is not a new discovery, it was not even the original name given to the find, so for me, it still strikes me as odd.
Of course being taught the 'english' way and having learned to say Aluminium all my life and as I previously mentioned not being a. a chemist nor b. a regular reader of any chemistry periodicals, it would strike me as odd.


A side note: calling me Darth Aluminium Dave strikes me more as petty than anything else especially as I didn't actually call you anything during that little debate, I can if you wish though?

[IdolEyes787]

Wow this is like watching two super computers argue over whether you should have the toilet paper feed from the bottom or the top of the roll.

At this point I am fervently hoping that Darth Cicero shows up and tried to disprove you both with the theory that aluminuininum was in fact invented by Louis Riel and that's what really lead to the Red River Rebellion.

[mjmacky]

A side note: calling me Darth Aluminium Dave strikes me more as petty than anything else especially as I didn't actually call you anything during that little debate, I can if you wish though?

I just wanted to be facetious on the account that it was all pretty dry, but you called me a name caller

Darth - Topic of discussion
Aluminium - Self explanatory
Dave - Because I noticed you were really latching onto one specific thing that you repeated in I think three posts.

I can be petty, but I think this qualifies more as pseudo-witty commentary.