you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 3 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

I'm honestly a fan of having the option to use standardised/latinised chemical element names.

Cu = Cuprum = Copper.

Hg = Hydrargyrum = Mercury. Hydrargyrum is still sometimes (very very rarely) used in English.

Pb = Plumbum = Lead. The French for lead is plomb, for example. Would clear up a lot of confusion with homographs. We already use plumb in English, as in plumb line. (The fact that it's plumbum, not plumbium, does undermine the whole aluminium>aluminum argument obviously).

Argentum instead of silver. Plenty of languages use a variation of that already. English already uses argent in some contexts, like heraldry.

Same thing for natrium instead of sodium, also common to have a variation of that in plenty of languages.

IRC Silicium was the originally proposed name for silicon. Plenty of languages also use a variation of that.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I picked these various elements because they end in -um rather than -ium when described by their Latin names. Because I think it is funny to complain about aluminum ending in -um.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    TBH in the past, I've argued both for the -um ending, and for the -ium ending. It really annoys some people. It's even more annoying, when they realise that you've managed to annoy them with such a pedantic point.

    Another one is skeptical/sceptical. "I think you'll find it comes from the Greek, so it should be with a k."

    Or the plural octopus. "I think you'll find it comes from the Greek, so it's octopodes. Octopi is certainly wrong, because it doesn't come from latin."

    I think I may be an energy vampire.

  • source
  • parent