If you are American you’ll say aluminum.

If you’re British you’ll say aluminium.

But the guy who came up with the stuff called it alumium at first.

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That guy was Sir Humphrey Davy back in 1808.

People had been using alum for thousands of years, especially to fix dye. It was economically important in England first to increase the value of wool being exported and later to increase the value of woven cloth by dying it.

Sir Humphrey changed his mind though, after he first called his discovery alumium he revised the name to aluminum.

Others thought this wonderful new stuff should have a more classical name and so suggested aluminium because they thought it went better with the names of other chemicals.

Again, it’s all about style.

I have a few problems with the OED definition of aluminium which hasn’t yet undergone the third edition revisions. It says “a metal, white, sonorous, ductile, and malleable, very light, not oxidized in the air…”

Sonorous?

When I look up sonorous it says “capable of giving out a sound, especially of a deep or ringing character.”

I do see one of their citations says that a bell was made of aluminum but this is not the usual choice for sonorous things because as a metal aluminum is pretty good at damping vibration. That’s why in the kitchen aluminum pots have a more thumpy sound than stainless steel pots.

Also, what’s this about “not oxidized in air?”

True, aluminum doesn’t raise blisters of rust the way iron and steel do, but the reason is that aluminum very quickly skins-over with a thin layer of oxide that blocks deeper oxidization.

But Humphrey Davy was an interesting character. By sheer strength of inquisitiveness he rose up the scientific ladder to be President of the Royal Society.

He also discovered laughing gas and did so because someone else theorized that it should be poison.

To find out what the qualities of nitrous oxide might be Humphrey Davy applied his inquisitive nature and started breathing the stuff himself. Instead of dying of a poison gas he found the stuff made him delirious.

He thought it might be good stuff to use as an anesthetic and so it is these days in dentist’s offices.

But he didn’t stop there. Along with his many other scientific inquiries he tried gulping back a lungful of carbon monoxide; that one almost killed him.

It didn’t though. Later after a stroke, he died peacefully in his sleep at the age of 50 in 1829.