> Yet many people persist in calling aluminum foil "tinfoil."

> We chemists get annoyed at things like that.

> Now, about aluminum foil.

Actually, most chemists are profoundly annoyed at the Americans' inability to spell aluminium properly...

Humphrey Davy, the British chemist who performed early work to isolate the element, and who initially named it, called it 'aluminum'. Americans mostly followed him, but the British changed later at the complaints of the French, Swedish, and Germans that it used essentially English roots rather than Latin ones. Which, considering that we now have elements named such things as Tennessine, seems to be a bit of an argument that doesn't quite apply anymore.

Sir Humphry Davy first isolated the stuff and he called it aluminum, so that's good enough for me.

It isn't clear if that is a dig at Americans having their own spelling of aluminum/aluminium, or ignorance that Americans have their own spelling.

> Actually, most chemists are profoundly annoyed at the Americans' inability to spell aluminium properly...

That's just patently false. Anyone who's had any sort of education in chemistry/physics is aware of the history of the word and doesn't give a damn.

Try to make them pronounce nuclear instead of nucelar :D

IUPAC recognizes both spellings.

Also, speak up, we can't hear you from all the way up here ON THE MOON.