this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
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Correct. That commenter just confused sphinx with sphynx.
Honestly I can understand why
The fuck happened with that one. Its literally the same word, this isnt an aluminum vs aliminium situation where the namer was a fuck up and called it both so people flipped a coin. Fucking English spelling is ratfucked.
No one has ever proposed "aliminium" for the name of the element.
"Alumium" was the original, "Aluminum" and "Aluminium" were battled in American and British journals.
British chemist Humphrey Davy named it alumium at first but immediately changed it aluminum. A journalist reporting on his discovery changed it to aluminium.
Fair enough, I guess I was just miss remembering. I thought he called it both multiple times and the US and Britain just said fuck it and went with one or the other.
The -ium ending is the standard naming convention for elements, e.g., plutonium, natrium, kalium.
Platinum says hello.
That's an after the fact convention though. I dont see anyone proposing we rename iron to ferium, silver to argentium, or lead to plumbumium.