The American Chemical Society (ACS) officially adopted aluminum in 1925, but in 1990 The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) accepted aluminium as the international standard. And so we land today: with aluminum used by the English speakers of North America, and aluminium used everywhere else.
They thought it had a more classical sound and was in line with the ending of the other elements isolated by Davy. This confusion began the debate on the ending of the word that continues to our day.
Why is there a difference in spelling between aluminium and aluminum? The metal was originally named aluminum by Humphrey Davy in 1812. This, however, upset some other scientists of the time who thought it should use the -ium ending, like sodium, calcium, magnesium etc.
Sounding it out may help, al-loo-MIN-ee-um … There's a second "i" in the British form of the word, aluminium, hence the extra syllable. Here's a video to help out.
Aluminium foil (or aluminum foil in North American English; often informally called tin foil) is aluminium prepared in thin metal leaves.
Q: So, to wrap all this up (in aluminium foil), it's the same shiny stuff but USA and Canada spell it “aluminum” and we spell it “aluminium”.
Our American cousins seem sometimes to arbitrarily decide that they shall pronounce a word in the French style even if it has been an English word for nearly a thousand years. Thus they leave the "h" silent in herb, just as the French do.
The American Chemical Society adopted “aluminum” because of how widely it was used by the public, but the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry officially designated the metal as “aluminium” as recently as 1990.
You say: Aluminum foil
It's funny how one single letter can create a debate between the Aussies and their North American acquaintances. To Americans, the handy kitchen product is pronounced “a-LU-min-num” and to us Aussies it's “al-U-min-ium.” We could just settle it once and for all and say “al foil.”
In both cases, the element symbol is Al, although Americans and Canadians spell and pronounce the name aluminum, while the British (and most of the rest of the world) use the spelling and pronunciation of aluminium.
Sometimes it's a typo, sometimes it's unawareness of the rules of the language, sometimes it's carelessness, sometimes it's Autocorrect going wrong, sometimes it's a lack of adequate education, sometimes it's dyslexia. Because they sound identical (virtually) and even native speakers make mistakes.
Zee became the standard way to pronounce Z in the United States in the 19th century. It's said that zee most likely came about because it rhymes with other letter pronunciations in the English alphabet (e.g., e, d, c, b, g, and p).
Mom and Mommy are old-English words, words that are stilled used in Birmingham and most parts of the West Midlands. It is said that when people from the West Midlands went to America many years ago they took the spelling with them, hence Americans use Mom and Mommy.
In 19th-century texts, both British English and American English were consistent in their usage of the terms period and full stop. The word period was used as a name for what printers often called the "full point", the punctuation mark that was a dot on the baseline and used in several situations.
Break 'aluminum' down into sounds: [UH] + [LOO] + [MI] + [NUHM] - say it out loud and exaggerate the sounds until you can consistently produce them.
Sir Humphry was not immediately decisive about the name, initially spelling it alumium in 1807. He then changed it to aluminum, and finally settled on aluminium in 1812. His classically educated scientific colleagues preferred aluminium right from the start.
What do the British call aluminum foil? In the United Kingdom and United States it is often informally called "tin foil", just as steel cans are often still called "tin cans". Metallised films are sometimes mistaken for aluminium foil, but are actually polymer films coated with a thin layer of aluminium.
Why do Americans pronounce 'solder' as 'sauder'? Because that's how it was pronounced in the UK at the time that the early settlers came to the USA from the UK. Since then, the UK pronunciation has changed. It's also pronounced 'sodder' or 'sauder' in Canada.
All it says is aluminum foil can be used as an alternative to tape to cover doorknobs and hardware while painting. It has nothing to do with safety and the inclusion of the phrase "when you're home alone" was only used as clickbait to make the ad seem more important. Copyright 2022 Scripps Media, Inc.