You can change the spelling of one word in the English language to match how they are pronounced. What word do you pick?

ericbomb@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 237 points –

I'm picking "Colonel" needs to be respelled to match how it's pronounced.

Try to pick a word no one else has picked. What word are you respelling?

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It's aluminium you stupid Americans.

Only cuz y'all changed it to that

The global sciences community decided on a name change, only one country decided to be contrary.

only one country decided to stay true to the discoverer's chosen name

Ftfy

By that logic Uranus would be called "George's Star". Then the English nationalists would would get uppity about its name.

The discover generally has input, but when there's a group of experts responsible for maintaining a list of names of things: they decide what's right.

Out of all the examples you could've chosen you went with Uranus.... respect.

Farnsworth: I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all..

Fry: Oh. What's it called now?

Farnsworth: Urectum.

Platinium too?

If the entire global science community decided to: yes.

You talk about it like all scientists could ever agree to something and that it would be possible to poll every single one and properly weight their individual scientific relevance.

"pluto isn't a dwarf planet".

Yeah, it is.

The scientific community agrees.

Same thing.

Congratulations, you just found the crazy whiney dissident group of astronomers who just can't admit they're wrong by general consensus.

Experts arguing amongst themselves is hardly the same.

An entire country being contrary just because of national pride and arrogance is completely different.

Disagreeing with general consensus ≠ wrong

An entire country being contrary just because of national pride and arrogance is completely different.

Is it your position that all countries should have the same language regardless of their cultural history?

Also, it isn't rooted in national pride or arrogance. Aluminum came first and was the name given by the first chemist - a British scientist - to isolate the metal. The variant aluminium came from a reviewer who changed the spelling just because he liked the sound better. Aluminum was recognized by ACS 65 years before IUPAC standardized to aluminum. IUPAC has recognized aluminum as an acceptable spelling since 1993. So yeah, the general concensus is the aluminum is okay even based on your logic because IUPAC says so.

OK.

I concede the point. Because the IUPAC says so.

Simple.

The American spelling matches the American pronunciation, and it was one of the original variations of the word. Americans didn't pick it out of nowhere.

That's more akin to saying "it's spelled aubergine, not eggplant, you stupid Americans".

I'm aware of the origins of the different spellings of aluminum/aluminium.

I disagree that it's two entirely different words which is the case for eggplant/aubergine that come from two different languages.

I can't think of another example that's better though.

I only know that you say it that way because Jonny Ive talked about the design of a laptop more than a decade ago. Frankly, I think you're right.

wow the completely unnecessary xenophobia

edit: we really need a feature to be able to block the people who upvote objectively toxic content like this

wow the completely expected nationalism.

That doesn't even make sense

Americans (generally) can't take criticism from non-Americans.

Some can. Some respond with "yeah we don't do that well" or enjoin the argument with interest and integrity.

Others start screeching about xenophobia.