You’re Saying 'Twat' Wrong

You’re Saying 'Twat' Wrong

I hate to break it to you guys, because your island has truly created a vast swath of the modern world ...

(Kudos on that, by the way.)

... but the way Americans pronounce a word is now ipso facto the correct way. However, we don't mind if you keep saying quaint things like al-you-MIN-ee-um. We find it charmingly dotty.

Dudes, I'm kidding.

By the way, the five syllable "aluminium" is the international standard in the sciences for both spelling and pronunciation. The confusion occurred because the element's discoverer, Humphry Davy, really mucked things up. He first proposed the name "alumium," then changed his mind and decided on "aluminum." The scientific community rejected the latter because it did not conform to the standard "-ium" ending of metallic elements. In most other languages where I can immediately recall the right word, the stress on the noun is on "MIN," as it is in the U.K.: aluminio (Spanish), aluminium (French, Polish and Norwegian), Aluminium (German), алюминий (Russian). Most of those variants clearly have five syllables, not four. The Russian word has only four syllables (or maybe four and a fraction, for reasons too long to detail) in the nominative, but more in other cases. Made "out of aluminum," for example, would be "из алюминия." (Ahl-yoo-MEEN-ee-ya). There may be other languages that come closer to the North American version, but I don't know of them.

So the British actually do have this one right, but good luck on getting North America to comply. That ship has sailed.