=> Lithium is a country in Europe if the earth was made of metals and every country was named after an element (even though there are 196 countries versus 118 elements)
IUPAC adopted aluminium as the standard international name for the element in 1990. It later accepted aluminum as a variant, but aluminium remains the primary spelling.
I wish the US would change - aluminium is so much easier to say than aluminum (even if my spell-checker does flag it as incorrect.) I usually end up saying it something like "alunimuminum".
I find "aluminum" easier to say that the hoity-toity "aluminium". I'm conflicted over which to prefer since aluminum is shorter (prefer) but other elements (e.g. lithium, beryllium) have "ium" endings. The tie-breaker is the Brits have been butchering the language worse than the Americans (cockney accent is worse than any accent in the USA) and there aren't enough Canadians PRO-cessing us so I favor "aluminum".
For whatever reason I've always used "aluminum" when talking about buildings or structures made out of the metal, but "aluminium" when talking about it in a chemistry sense.
Only that US English is used on this US-based website. You are welcome to start a competing British-English (or "international"-English), if that's your cup of tea.
It says you are an ignorant bigot, Q5. There's nothing wrong with the spelling or pronunciation favored in the US. Look up the history behind it instead of chauvinistically assuming you must be correct.
"Aluminium" is the international standard English spelling. That spelling is used on the periodic table quizzes (I think). I am British and I use the spelling "sulfur" because it is the internationally accepted one (as opposed to "sulphur", originally the British English spelling). @kalbahamut, the spellings "emty", "magick" and "stile" predate "empty", "magic" and "style" respectively. That doesn't make them correct spellings. There is nothing wrong with the American spelling as such, but the international standard is "aluminium" now. Calling people ignorant bigots because they make a comment such as "that says a lot" in response to the USA not using internationally accepted scientific spellings and saying someone must "have a speech impediment disorder" if they find certain pronunciations easier in a way you don't seems about as bigoted as the comments you are responding to, if you don't mind my saying so.
I call ignorant bigots ignorant bigots because they are ignorant bigots. I don't care if you mind my saying so. And there is no "international standard English"... No person, body or text exists that has the authority to designate such a thing. Not the Oxford English Dictionary. Not Noah Webster. Certainly not The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (which, some may be surprised to find out, is not an authority on the English language in any country let alone the world). Asserting that there is such a thing, or liking a comment that makes that assertion, is... well, you know.
Q5's comment has gone missing now. I hope for his sake it was deleted out of personal embarrassment. But it absolutely was what I said it was.
and my comment to ander was because "aluminum" is just objectively easier to say than "alyoominium." Not because the latter sounds ridiculous or because all people who prefer that pronunciation often speak normally in a way that sounds as if they have a speech impediment. If someone has a hard time saying the former, for reasons of physical difficulty and not cultural bias, especially if they grew up on a farm in the middle of the United States... then... that's extremely odd. From a phonetics and speech pathology perspective.
Apparently, there is only one body in the world who has the power and authority to decree for everyone everywhere what the standard accepted and officially recognised English language is, and we're very lucky to have this body right here in our midst. Kalbahamut - you either agree with him, or you're an ignorant bigot!
For the record: both spellings seem fine to me. I find aluminium both easier to pronounce and more pleasant to hear - but it's been well established for a very long time that I'm an ignorant bigot, according to all-round pleasant human being kalbahamut.
this must seriously affect the value of gold, surely?
Iron is useful in large quantities but as far as I know gold has very few practical uses and shouldn't hold its value if we're extracting this much annually? I know there are a few uses like coating electrical connections for improved conductivity but that must use a tiny fraction of the supply
This is not true. Wikipedia officially takes the position that whatever dialect an article is written in, British English or American English, use of that dialect should be consistent throughout the article. But that doesn't mean it prefers one to the other. The overwhelming majority of articles on Wikipedia are written in American English.
If true, then it's presumably because whoever last edited the page wasn't following the style guidelines of Wikipedia. You sound like a conspiracy theorist now looking for secret messages to validate your suspicions.
Or maybe simply because all scientists use aluminium all around the world...
e.g. in Pubmed (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) very little with aluminum and a lot with aluminium.
I guess they know better than the average people how it shall be called.
The humility should make non-expert people follow the experts and consistency approves that ; consistency for both how the name is worldwide spelled, and how the rest of the elements of the periodic table are spelled: cadmium, sodium, iridium, palladium, titanium, magnesium, sodium, rubidium, strontium, francium, uranium, barium, radium, nihonium, hassium, bohrium, osmium, rhenium, etc. cause there are a lot more of them.
Quite surprised iron isn't number one. But then again, I come from Australia and our economy is mostly based on digging up iron ore and sending it to China.
20 seconds left, I go through the alphabet to try and think of metals, 7-8 seconds left, get to M, think Manganese, 5 seconds left, half way through typing Manganese, I think of Magnesium, abandon Manganese, and type Magnesium with a second remaining. Sigh...
I will never miss molybdenum after the lady got a standing ovation for pronouncing it right in The Brothers O'Toole after all the townsfolk pronounced the name of their town 🎼Molly Be Damned, Molly Be Damned🎶.
By gum these new kids say that a lot about AC/DC now too, even though they were playing it long before those modern 1980s devil worshipping hair farmers I tell ya.
surprised not to see potassium on here. Per this link https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2020/mcs2020-potash.pdf seems 41,000,000 tons per year mined (of ore) and prices are around $800 per ton. That puts the total around $33Bn.
Hello, I think that chromium should be added. The source for this quiz is pretty limited and doesn’t say where the data is from, but I did a little searching and found some information about chromium. This source says that 44,000,000 tons of marketable chromite ore was produced worldwide in 2019. It also gives the unit value of the average US import of chromite ore as being $270 per ton. This gives a total value of $11.8 billion for chromite ore mined in 2018 if this price is applied to all the chromium produced. Even if the average value of chromium is lower in other countries, it seems very likely that it should still be included on this quiz.
Also, cobalt. According to this source, there were 140,000 metric tons of cobalt produced worldwide in 2019, and with cobalt being worth $15 per pound according to the source, this would give a total value of $4.6 billion for all the cobalt mined. Also, the source used for this quiz is 5 years old and demand for cobalt and cobalt production has increased recently due to its need in lithium ion batteries (compared with the 2016 data when 123,000 metric tons were produced and the price was $11.50 per pound).
None of these are elements. The quiz is looking for elemental metals.
Additionally, diamond is made from Carbon which is not a metal and ruby/ sapphire are made from Aluminum and Oxygen. (ruby has a bit of Chromium as well that makes it red).
Lithu |Add ania
Lithuania |Country in Europe
=> Lithium is a country in Europe if the earth was made of metals and every country was named after an element (even though there are 196 countries versus 118 elements)
Probably too nerdy and obscure for anyone to know what that is these days though.
Q5's comment has gone missing now. I hope for his sake it was deleted out of personal embarrassment. But it absolutely was what I said it was.
Iron is useful in large quantities but as far as I know gold has very few practical uses and shouldn't hold its value if we're extracting this much annually? I know there are a few uses like coating electrical connections for improved conductivity but that must use a tiny fraction of the supply
This page disagrees, though 75% is used for jewelry. But practical or not, the demand is still huge.
As everybody suggest, aluminium (the official, woldwide more frequently used version) must be accepted.
For non expert non native english speakers it can be a problem. However the British English also prefer aluminium.
hunjtg
e.g. in Pubmed (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) very little with aluminum and a lot with aluminium.
I guess they know better than the average people how it shall be called.
The humility should make non-expert people follow the experts and consistency approves that ; consistency for both how the name is worldwide spelled, and how the rest of the elements of the periodic table are spelled: cadmium, sodium, iridium, palladium, titanium, magnesium, sodium, rubidium, strontium, francium, uranium, barium, radium, nihonium, hassium, bohrium, osmium, rhenium, etc. cause there are a lot more of them.
Quite surprised with Molybdenium.
Thanks!
Additionally, diamond is made from Carbon which is not a metal and ruby/ sapphire are made from Aluminum and Oxygen. (ruby has a bit of Chromium as well that makes it red).
Potassium. No.
Rubidium. No.
Sodium. No.
Gah, what could the last one be? *ends quiz*
Lithium