OT - Pronunciation of words

For the benefit of the Canadians amongst us, Alcan, the Canadian Aluminum company, and one of the largest producers of aluminum in the world, was known legally as

Alcan AluminIUM Inc., until 2000 when it changed its name to Alcan Inc.

When in the UK, I always spelt it with IUM and this seems to be a commom ending for chemical elements such as barium, cadmium, strontium, cesium, .... What is "right" or "wrong" is a debate that can on for ever. The English language evolves by usage, not by dictate, so the will of the masses will eventually win out.

Roger.

Thank you, Christine, and all the rest of you who got into this discussion. :o)

It all depends then on how you heard / learned the word while growing up. I know in our house we always had Reynolds Aluminum Foil, and we always said (and heard others in our area say) A-loom-in-um. This was (aluminum) also the way we learned to spell it at school. To each his/her own! ;o)

Oh, Norma... I had never actually even heard the word leftenant until I saw a war movie and heard the British people saying it. I had always heard lieutenant. Maybe my ears only hear(d) in American when it came to some words? LOL

I know that I grew up spelling colour with a U in there, but somewhere along the way in school I was taught that in the US they don't put the U in the word. Now I spell it either way... but I still spell it coloUr most times!

Peace! Gemini

- differences make us unique and interesting. ;o)

lol us over here too in places....cher

Gemini, that is how I do pronouce it more or less as well A-lu-mi-ni-um. Is that not also the correct spelling for this ore.

Els

Same in the Nederlands, and depending on what source you use you can find that spelling in Canada as well.

Els

Katherine, some sources will spell it the English way and some the American way.

Els

Yes so do I, but with me it is the Dutch that is coming out...LOL

Els

Well Els, on my box of Reynolds Aluminum Foil it is spelled the way I just spelled it... without the second "i". But after reading all the responses, I can see that it is spelled with the second "i" in England and Australia. :o)

Peace! Gemini

pronunciation

That's another word that amazes me. How you get 'lef-ten-ant" out of the spelling is a puzzle. I'm Canadian, and we usually stick with English things, but to me on this word - it's LOO TEN ANT. (shrug)

Shelagh

That's the way I learned it too, Shelagh! :o)

Peace! Gem

Everytime I hear the word "lef-ten-ant" I wonder is there is a "right-ten-ant" ? ;-))

-- Carey in MA

OMG, me too, Carey? And, on top of it all, I'm hearing... "I say tom may toe, you say tom mah toe, I say pot tay toe, you say poh tah toe... let's call the whole thing off.." Splort! Noreen

I'd saw AL-yu-MIN-yum. Dh agrees with me.

I'm reminded of the chemistry teacher I had when I was 11yo: I lived in southern England, and she was Scottish. I'm sure was talking about "aran filings", perhaps from the Isle of Aran: she was actually saying "*iron* filings".

Well, there you go. That's my "I learned something new today" thing. ;>)

Shelagh

We always said "Leftenant", which is the Canadian way, as well as the UK and Australian.

Kather> Thank you, Christine, and all the rest of you who got into this

This is true.

Katherine

How do you get an "r" in "Colonel"??? Same thing. Oh, and my father, sister, and son were all in the military and they all pronounced if "leftenant".

Katherine

Then it was a good day!

Katherine

ok, here's another one! Often. How do you pronounce it? Off-Ten, or Offen? I was taught Off-en. But my daughter learned Off-ten in school.