# My mission: To get Australians to pronounce Aluminum correctly



## waz (4 February 2009)

I just saw this commerical on tv to promote recycling of Aluminum, however the girl pronounced it Aluminium, where did the extra i come from?

Having been Australian educated, even I used to pronounce Aluminium (I blame my primary school teachers and tv for that), isnt it funny how Australians say so many words incorrectly.

The American version is correct. I checked on wikipedia and found it funny that aluminium is so common these days they had both versions.

Another one which makes me cringe is people from Melbourne saying that they come from Malbourne or Melbin.

Feel free to add to my list of words or shortened versions of the word that make you cringe:
Brisbin for Brisbane
chori for choreography
chrissy for Christmas
pressy for present
tomato/potato (cmon australia your confusing our kids)
Any word with 'el' where people from the south (VIC/TAS) pronounce it as 'al'
i.e talavision, talaphone, alaphant, alsewhere, alagant, etc

PS. Just because something is more common in the location where you live, it doesnt make it correct.

Have fun coming up with words.


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## MrBurns (4 February 2009)

deleted


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## gfresh (4 February 2009)

From wikipedia itself.

In the UK and most other countries using British spelling, only *aluminium (with an i before -um) is used.* In the United States (and other places where they cannot spell properly), the spelling aluminium is largely unknown, and the spelling aluminum predominates.[33][34] The Canadian Oxford Dictionary prefers aluminum, *whereas the Australian Macquarie Dictionary prefers aluminium.*


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## Glen48 (4 February 2009)

I like it when you ask some one on the Phone a question and they say who me?
makes me wonder if the line is being tapped.


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## waz (4 February 2009)

I stand corrected. oops.

So much for my research. I blame american tv for that one


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## Buddy (4 February 2009)

waz said:


> I just saw this commerical on tv to promote recycling of Aluminum, however the girl pronounced it Aluminium, where did the extra i come from?
> 
> Having been Australian educated, even I used to pronounce Aluminium (I blame my primary school teachers and tv for that), isnt it funny how Australians say so many words incorrectly.
> 
> ...





Why your mission?  You are wrong & not "correct". Both spellings & prononciation are acceptable, it just depends on where you live as to which you use.

In the UK and most other countries using British spelling, only aluminium (with an i before -um) is used. In the United States, the spelling aluminium is largely unknown, and the spelling aluminum predominates.

In 1807-88 Sir Humphrey Davy established the existence of the metal. Davy proposed the name alumium for the metal, undiscovered at that time, and later agreed to change it to aluminum. 

Shortly thereafter, the name aluminium was adopted by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) to conform with the "ium" ending of most elements. Aluminium is the IUPAC spelling and therefore the international standard. 

Aluminium was also the accepted spelling in the U.S.A. until 1925, at which time the American Chemical Society decided to revert back to aluminum, and to this day Americans still refer to aluminium as "aluminum".

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) adopted aluminium as the standard international name for the element in 1990, but three years later recognized aluminum as an acceptable variant. Hence their periodic table includes both, but places aluminium first in alphabetical order. IUPAC officially prefers the use of aluminium in its internal publications, although several IUPAC publications use the spelling aluminum.

Variation is what makes the English language so great and interesting.


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## MrBurns (4 February 2009)

Does you all realise that MS Word spell check rejects the word "Google" ?

How pathetic, Google might buy them out and shred them for the good of mankind.


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## Wysiwyg (4 February 2009)

Well my mission is to rebuff Americanisms from invading the minds of Australians.

Seems others think the same way.

No goodness in their egotistical "we`re better n you" and their corporate money machines that have failed to steamroll the rest of the world.


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## white_goodman (4 February 2009)

herb =

hurrb?

or

errb?


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## wayneL (4 February 2009)

Wysiwyg said:


> Well my mission is to rebuff Americanisms from invading the minds of Australians.
> 
> Seems others think the same way.
> 
> No goodness in their egotistical "we`re better n you" and their corporate money machines that have failed to steamroll the rest of the world.



Brothers in arms! :bigun2:


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## tigerboi (4 February 2009)

*Re:your mission: To get americans to pronounce Buoy correctly*

Ok then can you get the yanks to pronounce buoy properly?

BOOEE...

gets my goolies!


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## Prospector (4 February 2009)

And buffet is NOT boofay


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## springhill (4 February 2009)

Australia -Orstraeya, Austraeya, Astralia or just Stralia or even Straya maaaaaaate, there are several mutilations of this one


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## SenTineL (4 February 2009)

waz said:


> (cmon australia your confusing our kids)




And I'm on a mission to educate people to use 'you're' and 'your' properly.
It's not that hard, same goes for there and their, but I might be asking too much with that one.


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## Smurf1976 (4 February 2009)

waz said:


> Any word with 'el' where people from the south (VIC/TAS) pronounce it as 'al'
> i.e talavision, talaphone, alaphant, alsewhere, alagant, etc



Must be a Vic thing since I've never heard it living in Tas.

The Abt Railway now has a new name (West Coast Wilderness Railway) partly because so many people from outside the state couldn't pronounce Abt correctly. 

And I've never heard anyone from outside of Tas pronounce Sorell (a town) correctly.


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## CoffeeKing (4 February 2009)

Why go to all the bother of pronouncing it...

Just say "Tinny" any OZZIE knows what that is... Aluminum


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## wayneL (4 February 2009)

SenTineL said:


> And I'm on a mission to educate people to use 'you're' and 'your' properly.
> It's not that hard, same goes for there and their* and they're*, but I might be asking too much with that one.




Oh those drive me bonkers, even though I sometimes make the same mistake.

It interrupts the flow of reading when you continuously have to interpret incorrect meanings all the time.

The other one that causes meltdown is sort and sought. 

There is also a big argument over apostrophes over here. I must admit to being an apostrophe militant as well. (But still screw up there too )


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## Mr Capital (4 February 2009)

It's starting to piss me right off when I hear people say "whats dooin" ?

is it meant to be like "what are you doing" 

I guess its some teenager thing.


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## cashcow (4 February 2009)

I honestly thought the original post was a troll!


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## white_crane (4 February 2009)

Wysiwyg said:


> Well my mission is to rebuff Americanisms from invading the minds of Australians.
> 
> Seems others think the same way.
> 
> No goodness in their egotistical "we`re better n you" and their corporate money machines that have failed to steamroll the rest of the world.






wayneL said:


> Brothers in arms! :bigun2:




Amen to that!


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## ghotib (5 February 2009)

Yep. I reckon the US can take its aloominum and make a shiny foil crown for Ms Saira Moany. 

The word is *cer*emony. No moans. 

And while we're at it, what's with all this "off of" and "outside of". Off with their ofs!!!

Meantime, in the interests of Anglophone unity, it's time for a multi  (that's multy; not multeye) million dollar educational campaign on the appropriate use of "lose" and "loose". 

I think I'm going to learn classical Greek. It least it's not changing by the day.

Ghoti


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## noirua (5 February 2009)

aluminium and aluminum are both correct. The difference arose from the word "alum" which is a double sulphate of aluminium and potassium...and alumium, aluminum and alumina, oxides of aluminium...and aluminate a salt whos  acid is aluminium hydroxide.

Much is in the hands of the dictionary itself.  If you pay $70 to $100 for your dictionary then both aluminium and aluminum will be included.  
If its a cheap handy dictionary then lots of words are missing.


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## wayneL (5 February 2009)

Not necessarily an Americanism, but another one that grates is "must of" or "would of", often seen on ASF.



It's "must have" or "would have" or use the *'ve* contraction if you must - eg "would've".


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## It's Snake Pliskin (5 February 2009)

wayneL said:


> Not necessarily an Americanism, but another one that grates is "must of" or "would of", often seen on ASF.
> 
> 
> 
> It's "must have" or "would have" or use the *'ve* contraction if you must - eg "would've".




Yes that pisses me off.

..and then there is *less* and *fewer* which aussies misuse too much and basically have no clue unless they study the language or teach it.

Do we misuse much and many ? NO. So why less and fewer?


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## GumbyLearner (5 February 2009)

Depot is a word that springs to mind. 
The 'e' sound is pronounced as a long 'ee' by North Americans,
but should be pronounced as a short 'e'. eg. Yesterday I went to 
the bus 'deepot' and purchased a ticket. 

It's all about Webster vs. Oxford. Noah Webster disliked the English. Many American scholars will admit so. Spoken English has been butchered and most Commonwealth countries including the US pronounce vowels differently. Just go to NZ to buy some 'fush' or 'mulk' hey bro!  Or go to Canada no 'doobt' 'aboot' it! :


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## Wysiwyg (5 February 2009)

And "kinda" is sexy in a way (like prospectors avatar  ) but just another one of those television soap opera abbreviations that stick in peoples minds.


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## white_crane (5 February 2009)

Is this going to turn into another spelling and grammar thread?


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## Prospector (5 February 2009)

white_crane said:


> Is this going to turn into another spelling and grammar thread?





It started that way so I am guessing it is much too late to be asking that!


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## bassmanpete (5 February 2009)

> In 1807-88 Sir Humphrey Davy established the existence of the metal. Davy proposed the name alumium for the metal, undiscovered at that time, and later agreed to change it to aluminum.




I think those are just typos above. He originally proposed aluminum but it was later changed to aluminium to match other elements' names, eg cadmium, palladium.

The confusing of bought & brought grates on me - I brought a new camera and I've bought it with me. Yuk.

Also it's not 'a myriad of' anything it's just myriad. If you use it like you would use 'many' you can't go wrong.


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## aarbee (5 February 2009)

While we are on pronunciations, here in Oz we have gotten used to excising a syllable from the many words ending with ary, like temporary. To me it should be pronounced tem-po-ra-ry not temp-ary. This seems to have become mainstream with pollies, teachers, radio announcers etc all guilty of it. I for one, point this out to my kids every time they take a short-cut with words. 

Cheers,


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## theasxgorilla (5 February 2009)

aarbee said:


> While we are on pronunciations, here in Oz we have gotten used to excising a syllable from the many words ending with ary, like temporary. To me it should be pronounced tem-po-ra-ry not temp-ary. This seems to have become mainstream with pollies, teachers, radio announcers etc all guilty of it. I for one, point this out to my kids every time they take a short-cut with words.




Live for a while in a country where English is only a second language and you'll be articulating in no time!


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## waz (5 February 2009)

This is not another spelling and grammer thread. More a speaking thread.

Having travelled overseas to many english speaking nations, I now understand why they put subtitles for Australians even though we are speaking the same language.

Have any of you noticed when some people is asked a question (Shane Warne comes to mind) they answer the question by saying:
'Yeah no', which means no
and 'No yeah', which means yes.

Then when they have completed their answer they say 'soooooo' which means my answer is over, can you please say something back to me so that we dont have an awkward silence.

Other words which come to mind are:
Wensday
Seveneen
and anything with a 'th' pronounced as 'f', eg. fursday, furteen, fought etc.

As aarbee has said, we tend to leave out entire syllables/letters from any word which has more than 6 letters. Either we are lazy, do most of our talking when we drink beer, raised with dumbed down television, or we are very good at being efficient. Maybe a combination of all four. hehe

PS. I would love to know who was the first person to end an email with the word 'cheers', they started a revolution. I wonder if 'How's tricks' will be as popular. Yes, hows tricks might sound funny now as a replacement for hello, although there was a time in the mid 90's when people thought cheers was an odd replacement for thankyou.

I guess that original email was implying that if you do your assigned task as you have been asked, you may get a drink by the end of the week. That manager became a very popular guy and the trend followed, with or without a drink at the end of the working week.

I watch way to much Seinfeld. hehe


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## Romano (5 February 2009)

The one that I hate is "from the get go"
Does that mean from the start.
Why not just say so.


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## Gar (5 February 2009)

white_crane said:


> Amen to that!




Raises tinny to Wayne, Wysiwyg & Crane

Struth


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## bassmanpete (5 February 2009)

> As aarbee has said, we tend to leave out entire syllables/letters from any word which has more than 6 letters. Either we are lazy, do most of our talking when we drink beer, raised with dumbed down television, or we are very good at being efficient. Maybe a combination of all four. hehe




If they want to make words shorter, then why do so many people, including our ex-PM, say knowan instead of known? I've even heard renown pronounced renowan.

Two others poorly pronounced, and sports commentators are the worst offenders, are sikth for sixth and twelth for twelfth.


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## aarbee (5 February 2009)

theasxgorilla said:


> Live for a while in a country where English is only a second language and you'll be articulating in no time!




LOL - I was born and raised in just such a country.

Cheers


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## GreatPig (5 February 2009)

wayneL said:


> There is also a big argument over apostrophes over here



I've seen discussion about that elsewhere, in relation to Birmingham council deciding to remove all apostrophes from street names.

Of course some streets have been like that for yonks. Could you imagine London having a Knight'sbridge (according to Wikipedia: "It is recorded that the citizens of London met Matilda of England at the Knight's Bridge in 1141"), or Sydney having a King'sway? 

GP


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## Julia (5 February 2009)

My goodness, I feel so much better after reading this thread.  I have a permanent campaign of self talk telling myself not to get infuriated by the continued poor grammar and spelling that abounds.

As others have noted, the particular irritations are:

'there' for 'their' or even 'they're'.

'less' when it should be 'fewer'.

and many others.

But, jeez, more than anything else it's the lack of understanding of how to use apostrophes that drives me nuts.   There seems to be a culture of 'if in doubt just add an apostrophe - anywhere!'

I've even seen otherwise articulate and intelligent posters write "He say's it should happen.....".

And 'it's' when there is no call for an apostrophe.

Please, people, if you're abbreviating the words "it is" then yes add the apostrophe because it's an indication to the reader that something has been omitted, i.e. the i of is.
But ' a lizard sheds its skin' does not need an apostrophe.

Grrr!


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## noirua (7 February 2009)

Julia said:


> My goodness, I feel so much better after reading this thread.  I have a permanent campaign of self talk telling myself not to get infuriated by the continued poor grammar and spelling that abounds.
> 
> As others have noted, the particular irritations are:
> 
> ...




Excellent stuff and even better here: http://www.apostrophe.org.uk

Yes, you've guessed it, The Apostrophe Protection Society.


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## Darlex (16 April 2016)

Actually dear mere commoners, the element Alumium was invented by Humpty Davros, King of the Daleks, at 7.15am, on the 10th of April, in 1437.

And this is how he spelt tit.

Just like Uraninium, Voltron and Cybeartron.


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## Tisme (16 April 2016)

Wysiwyg said:


> Well my mission is to rebuff Americanisms from invading the minds of Australians.
> 
> Seems others think the same way.
> 
> No goodness in their egotistical "we`re better n you" and their corporate money machines that have failed to steamroll the rest of the world.




Route pronounced rout
Math now used instead of maths
Schedule pronounced skedule

I don't know who to blame for the mispronunciation of bruschetta here coz the yanks and brits seem to at least have the "sketta" part correct.

You can blame Webster and product branding for the bastardisation of English


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## wayneL (16 April 2016)

Tisme said:


> Route pronounced rout
> Math now used instead of maths
> Schedule pronounced skedule
> 
> ...




I drive my crowd crazy about bruschetta. But an Italian waitress did kiss me on the forehead when I ordered "brusketta" the other night.


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## bellenuit (16 April 2016)

One word almost every Yank gets right, but perhaps only about 50% of native born Australians seem to manage, is "Australia". I cringe every time I hear a public figure say "Austraya". Anthony Albanese is a prime example.


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## SirRumpole (16 April 2016)

The yanks say Orange wrong.  I can't spell the difference but you know what I mean.


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## Smurf1976 (16 April 2016)

CoffeeKing said:


> Just say "Tinny" any OZZIE knows what that is... Aluminum




A rather late response to a post from 7 years ago but I think this one might vary regionally?

Around here the primary meaning is a small boat made of aluminium. Less commonly it's a reference to a can of beer although that use seems to be mostly obsolete these days.


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## dutchie (17 April 2016)

Darlex said:


> And this is how he spelt tit.




How did he spell tit, why not b-r-e-a-s-t or b-o-s-o-m or b-o-o-b or ...........


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## Logique (17 April 2016)

An interesting one.

The "Aluminum" spelling does seem to be interchangeable in the US, but doesn't seem to be correct on a theoretical chemistry basis.

I always set the computer default to English english (not US english).



> http://grammarist.com/spelling/aluminium-aluminum/
> *Aluminium vs aluminum*
> 
> Aluminum is the American and Canadian spelling for the silver-white metallic element (number 13 on the periodic table) abundant in the earth’s crust. *Aluminium is the preferred spelling outside North America*.  Neither term is superior to the other, and both are etymologically and logically justifiable. Aluminum is older, while *aluminium is more consistent with other element names such as helium, lithium, magnesium*, and so on (though let’s not forget there are other -um elements - molybdenum, tantalum, and platinum).
> ...


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## Tisme (19 April 2016)

Rugby commentator last night ..." blah blah changed tact" instead if changed tack

Another mangled cliche  "hang fire" instead of hang five (toes)"


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## Value Collector (19 April 2016)

Tisme said:


> Another mangled cliche  "hang fire" instead of hang five (toes)"




They are two different sayings with different meanings.

eg.

To "Hang Fire" means - to delay doing something, especially making a decision, because you are waiting to see what will happen or for more information.

It actually comes from a term used to describe a weapon/ammunition malfunction, Hang fire refers to an unexpected delay between the triggering of a firearm and the ignition of the propellant, So its become used as a saying to describe a deliberate delay in taking action on something.

-----------------------------

Here is a hang fire, sometimes it can be several seconds, so it's important to continue holding the weapon in a safe direction after the misfire. don't turn around to ask your buddies whats going on, and don't rush to clear the stoppage if your ammo is prone to hang fires, otherwise it may go off as you eject the round.


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## Value Collector (19 April 2016)

SirRumpole said:


> The yanks say Orange wrong.  I can't spell the difference but you know what I mean.




Are you talking about the ones that say "awe-whinge", lol


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## SirRumpole (19 April 2016)

Value Collector said:


> Are you talking about the ones that say "awe-whinge", lol




Or ange


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