What petty hill will you die on?

thrawn@beehaw.org to Chat@beehaw.org – 161 points –

For me I say that a truck with a cab longer than its bed is not a truck, but an SUV with an overgrown bumper.

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As a science enthusiast, until the US stops using the "Alu-min-um" pronunciation, I refuse to spell Sulphur as "Sulfur", even if it is part of IUPAC.

Edit: Forgot to add this originally, but Aluminium is also the IUPAC standard spelling/pronunciation, which I argue makes my petty hill all the more valid.

As an American, I would just like to say that "aluminium" is better than "aluminum" because it matches the -ium suffix of most other elements.

But I am gonna have to disagree with you on the sulfur/sulphur debate. We already got shit like naphthalene and phenolphthalein to worry about spelling, i don't need any more spurrious "ph"s when a nice simple "f" will do just fine.

Oh I do think it's simpler, I just disagree on the principle of conceding our cooler spelling of Sulphur to the US version when the US still refuses to use the proper Aluminium pronunciation (which is also the official IUPAC pronunciation BTW)

Can't have the cake and eat it too afterall.

Aluminum came before aluminium.

You'll find that hardly matters considering only the US uses that spelling and pronunciation, and the official IUPAC spelling and pronunciation is Aluminium.

But there's not another vowel between the 'n' and the 'u', why would you pronounce it "AL-yoo-MINI-um"!?

It's similar to people who pronounce nuclear "nuke-yoo-lar", those extra letters just aren't in the word!