y do the yanks pronounce aluminium as a-loom-num?

Answer 1

Hullo? are you serious? My science books, my history books... they've all lied to me? Looked it up, and I'll be danged, it is aluminium. So sorry. Next you'll be telling me that my car isn't really a car, it's an auto-mobile or something like that.

Answer 2

Our president calls nuclear new cue ler. Please pray for us here in West Texas where we laugh every time we hear him speak. I am puzzled,however, by the Thames being Tims and other English idioms. If we answered a question in science with aluminium it would be counted wrong because of spelling. The accepted spelling in the US is aluminum. I think our President calls it "Lum num." Anyway, most Americans don't think our way is better or worse than any other. Most of the folks you see in News Casts giving their opinions are all self obsessed. Can you imagine anyone really thinking they should be President because they think they could do it better than anyone else. All or our Legislators and elected officials, stars and entertainers, rich and famous, are on self serving, self obsessed, ego trips and are not typical of Americans, just as Yobs and Tony Blair are not typical of Brits.

Answer 3

Please read the spellings here carefully. Thank you.

Actually, it is the Brits who pronounce it incorrectly. When Humphrey Davy isolated the element in 1808 he called it alumium. Then four years later, for some unknown reason, he changed it to aluminum.

Americans duly changed the way they said it, ie the correct way, aluminum, but the Brits got it wrong by assuming that it was part of the other -ium elements (sodium, calcium etc) and mispronounced it from that day to this.

Answer 4

Because they spell it aluminum (no final i). And much as I'd love to moan about what the Americans do to our language, this is actually the original spelling.

We English changed the spelling in the 19th century because giving it the -ium ending made it fit in with other metals in the Periodic Table of the Elements.

Answer 5

Because the Americans tend to spell some words phonetically.

Remember the big push in British schools a while back to learn and spell phonetically? - it didn't work.

That was the real reason for introducing mobile phones (cell phones to our American friends) with text SMS.

We are now well on the road to a full phonetic language!!!!

Answer 6

As a general rule, Brits put the emphasis on the first syllable of a word, whereas Americans put it on the second syllable. Just general, I'm sure there are many cases where this is not true!

Answer 7

Because they spell it that way: ALUMINUM.

ALUMINUM is actually the original spelling of that metal's given name. But it was later changed to ALUMINIUM to better match the other elemental metals (sodIUM, potassIUM, lithIUM etc).

Both spellings are the "official" name for that metal but in the US they use the original ALUMINUM whereas in the UK we use the newer ALUMINIUM.

Answer 8

j smith 7 is mostly right. I understand that the American version was the original spelling (and pronounciation) but soon after it was discovered, a mis-spelling in a text book put the second i in it and that became the accepted spelling in UK.

Answer 9

Yes

Answer 10

I wondered that as well. I didn't know they spelled it differently. They obviously think we're Limey fools for saying it the way we do as they don't know we spell it differently as well. Is that why they say "nucular weapons" instead of "nuclear". Do they spell that different as well or just talk like George Bush!