Elementymology & Elements Multidict

memory peg	A light, gray metal melting point 660 °C; 1221 °F boiling point 2467 °C; 4473 °F density 2.7 g/cc; 168.49 pounds/cubic foot
1825 Hans Christian Ørsted
alumen = alum (Latin) named alumi(n)um by Sir Humpry Davy in 1807

   

In 1808, Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829) did experiments for the decomposition of alumine, silex, zircone, and glucine. He failed to isolate the metals in these, as he reported in his paper for the Royal Society of London on 30 June 1808, but he suggested names for the metals (note):

Thus he proposed the name alumium for this still undiscovered metal and later agreed to change it to aluminum. Shortly thereafter the name aluminium was adopted to conform with the -ium ending of most elements. By the mid-1800s both spellings were in use, indeed Charles Dickens commented at the time that he felt both names were too difficult for the masses to pronounce! But he was very happy with the new metal, and in 1857 he wrote: "Within the course of the last two years ... a treasure has been divined, unearthed and brought to light ... what do you think of a metal as white as silver, as unalterable as gold, as easily melted as copper, as tough as iron, which is malleable, ductile, and with the singular quality of being lighter that glass? Such a metal does exist and that in considerable quantities on the surface of the globe.

The advantages to be derived from a metal endowed with such qualities are easy to be understood. Its future place as a raw material in all sorts of industrial applications is undoubted, and we may expect soon to see it, in some shape or other, in the hands of the civilised world at large."
In 1925 the American Chemical Society decided to revert back to aluminum. James B. Calvert, an American chemist who uses the word Aluminum writes:

"You probably noted that the title uses "aluminium" instead of the American "aluminum," which I did purely in futile protest. Until 1925, the word was "aluminium" even in the U.S., but in that year the American Chemical Society decided to change it. We also got "sulfur" in that same year, which still looks silly, and was not universally adopted by the engineering world. It's the Latin spelling, as is "sulpur." Fortunately, the urge for simplified spelling did not result in Fosforus or Thorum, or even Jermanum, combining both types of change. The -ia ending of a refractory oxide, such as alumina or thoria, usually named the metal with an -ium ending. Why aluminum had to be different, I do not know. A divergence in pronunciation also results, "alyouminium" versus "aloominum." The latter may have been a vulgar pronunciation. It is usually the English who have trouble pronouncing more than three syllables in a word, not the colonials."

Hans Christian Ørsted (1777-1851) is now generally credited with having been the first to prepare metallic Aluminium. In 1825 he isolated a small sample of impure Aluminium for the first time. His claim was nearly lost by publication in an obscure Danish journal and was not very interested in pursuing it any further. He told it to Friedrich Wöhler (1800-1882), who developed the method isolated the metal in 1827 and became known as the discoverer of Aluminium.

• A few Slavic languages (pl, cs and sk) have a name derived from glina respectively hlína = clay.

 

In 1892, Henry D. Richmond (1867-1931) and Hussein Off, of the Khedivial Laboratory in Cairo (Egypt) announced the discovery of a new element, to which they have given the name Masrium (Ms), after Masr or Misr, the Arabic name for Egypt. It was found in the mineral Johnsonite, supposed to be a manganese alum, but they found 0.2 % of an unknown substance in it. They did not succeed to isolate the metal, but calculated an atomic weight which agrees with that of Radium. The mineral was named Masrite. In this mineral no radioactive elements are present, thus it is believed that the substance Richmond and Off have prepared was Aluminium with traces of Manganese (note), (note2).

• Mary Elvira Weeks, Discovery of the Elements, comp. rev. by Henry M. Leicester (Easton, Pa.: Journal of Chemical Education, 1968), pp. 557-579.
• James B. Calvert, "Aluminium" 2002 (on-line).
• International Aluminium Institute, History of Aluminium.