Quote:
Originally Posted by Bilbo1967
Yeah, I was under the impression for a long time that this was just illiteracy on the part of Americans but I have a vague recollection of reading somewhere that 'aluminum' was the more historically correct spelling.
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The American version is the more correct one. Historically, the way that metalic elements were named was to replace the "-a" of the name of the "ore" (most metallic ores end in "-a") with "-um" for the element. Aluminium ore is called "alumina", hence "aluminum" for the name of the element. Many metalic ores end in "-ia", which is why the element ends in "-ium", but it doesn't in this case.