Why do Americans say aluminum?

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.
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Why do the British pronounce aluminum as aluminium?

In 1808, Sir Humphry Davy identified the existence of the metal in alum, which he at first named "alumium" and later "aluminum." Davy proposed the name aluminum when referring to the element in his 1812 book Elements of Chemical Philosophy, despite his previous use of "alumium." The official name "aluminium" was ...
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Why do Americans and British pronounce aluminum differently?

Aluminum = The British pronunciation is a tongue twister.

But, then you're in danger of forgetting how to say it in American-English. 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.
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Do Americans say aluminium?

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.
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Why do Americans miss out the i in aluminium?

It was British scientists of the time, however, that decided, with a beautiful level of verbosity, that: “Aluminium, for so we shall take the liberty of writing the word, in preference to aluminum, which has a less classical sound.”
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Aluminium or Aluminum? Why do Americans Say Aluminum



Why do Americans say zee?

Others argue that zee follows the rhyme pattern of the “Alphabet Song” — copyrighted in Boston in 1835 — making the song, and the alphabet, easier to learn. Zee became the American standard.
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Why do Americans say period?

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.
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How do Aussies say aluminum?

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.”
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Why do the British call it leftenant?

According to military customs, a lower ranking soldier walks on the left side of a senior officer. This courtesy developed when swords were still used on the battle field. The lower ranked soldier on the "left" protected the senior officers left side. Therefore, the term leftenant developed.
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What does full stop mean in Australia?

The period (known as a full stop in British English) is probably the simplest of the punctuation marks to use. You use it like a knife to cut the sentences to the required length.
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Do British call periods full stop?

Outside the U.S. and Britain, full stop is generally preferred to period, but the latter does appear occasionally in all the main varieties of English.
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Is there a full stop after Dr?

Note carefully the use of full stops in these abbreviations. British usage favours omitting the full stop in abbreviations which include the first and last letters of a single word, such as Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr and St; American usage prefers (A) Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr. and St., with full stops.
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Why do British people say bloody?

Don't worry, it's not a violent word… it has nothing to do with “blood”.”Bloody” is a common word to give more emphasis to the sentence, mostly used as an exclamation of surprise. Something may be “bloody marvellous” or “bloody awful“. Having said that, British people do sometimes use it when expressing anger…
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How do Northerners say caramel?

Jamie also shared a pronunciation map of the U.S. put together in 2013 by Joshua Katz of North Carolina State's department of statistics, showing that the “car-mel” pronunciation dominates the western and northern part of the nation, while “car-uh-mel” starts in southeast Texas and slowly slides diagonally up the ...
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Why do British people say innit?

'Innit' - usually pronounced that way, usually with a regional accent of some kind, often with a Cockney accent of some kind, often with a Jamaican accent - it's because it's come really from the fashionable use, in London mainly, by the Asian community and the Jamaican community, popularised by Ali G and others.
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What do British people call tin 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. In Australia, aluminium foil is widely called alfoil.
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How do the Brits spell aluminum?

The most comforting part of this story is that both Aluminum and Aluminium are accepted and correct. Aluminum is preferred in North America, whereas Aluminium is the spelling preferred in the United Kingdom and most other English-speaking nations.
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Why is colonel pronounced weird?

“Colonel” came to English from the mid-16th-century French word coronelle, meaning commander of a regiment, or column, of soldiers. By the mid-17th century, the spelling and French pronunciation had changed to colonnel. The English spelling also changed, and the pronunciation was shortened to two syllables.
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Why is Arkansas not pronounced like Kansas?

So why do we pronounce them differently? We can thank the French. Arkansas was named for the French plural of a Native American tribe, while Kansas is the English spelling of a similar one. Since the letter "s" at the end of French words is usually silent, we pronounce Bill Clinton's home state "Arkansaw."
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Why is Derby pronounced Darby?

Derby means a horse race, a contest open to all comers or a sporting event between two local teams. In British English, derby is pronounced dar-bee. In American English, derby is pronounced dur-bee. Unfortunately, more often than not, I hear Americans — including a number of folks at The18 — pronounce derby as dar-bee.
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