Why is it that Americans have dropped the “i” from the correct spelling of aluminium? This omission also changes the enunciation of the word, why is it so?
Why is it that the British, who changedc the ending of aluminum so that it would be consistent with most of the other elements (we’ll ignore platinum for now) are the ones who insist on the inconsistent pronunciatioon zed for the last letter of thre alphabet, instead of zee, which is consistent with the pronunciation of many other letters (we’ll ignore double u for now)?
Nothing like poisoning the well right at the OP!
You have as an assumption something (“the correct spelling”) which is not true. There are two correct spellings of the element in question, as accepted by pretty much everyone (including the IUPAC).
The earliest name for element 13 was “alumium” (cite). Humphrey Davy then changed the name to its second spelling, “aluminum”, in 1812. “Aluminium” didn’t come about until 1824, courtesy of Friedrich Wöhler.
Oh well. I suppose Christmas is the time of year for old chestnuts :rolleyes:
Humphry Davy first coined the name, as “alumium”, from alum (which is what he was trying to isolate the metal from, unsuccessfully as it turned out).
Then he decided “aluminum” was a catchier name, but this later got corrupted to “aluminium”, on both sides of the Atlantic, in analogy with the other element names ending -ium. The British stuck with “aluminium”, while usage in America varied until they settled on “aluminum”, because that was what the main producers of alumin(i)um called it in the early 20th century.
Now can we all bitch about sulfur and cesium too? 
I think you mean sulfurium and cesiumium old boy.
You mean sulfurium? 
No, it’s “sulphurium”, you heathens.
Ninja’d 
Oh hey, look here… which country has an element named after it? Britainium? Englandium? No… it’s Americium! And Francium… And Germanium…
Fuck we even have Berkelium and Californium!
We’ll spell and say elements any damn way we please, that’s why! 
The British did not change the spelling. Humphrey Davy, who was British, discovered the element, and, after some wavering, gave it the name aluminium.
Noah Webster later changed it in his Dictionary for Americans (as he did the spelling of certain other English words), mainly just because he thought, for nationalistic reasons, that American English ought to be different from British English. (Also, perhaps, he thought it would help the American economy if ink were used less profligately there. :))
In this case (in most similar cases, actually, but this one very clearly) the British spelling and pronunciation has precedence.
However, the answer to the OP’s question is that, American English and British English are, by now, very slightly different languages (or dialects, or whatever), and this is one of the differences. Aluminium is correct in Britain and (I think) most other English speaking countries; aluminum is correct in the USA. Live with it.
Would you kindly provide a cite for the above? It’s in conflict with what I read, namely that Davy started with “alumium”, changed it to “aluminum”, and “aluminium” didn’t come on the scene until 12 years later, by way of Sweden (and thanks to Friedrich Wöhler, who was doing a translation of that Swedish paper).
Aluminum in Canada too.
I’d almost feel bad about it, except that this was just mulled over in another thread within the past week.
And my recollection is the same as BorgHunter’s
In many, probably most cases, differences in spelling between UK and US English are the result of change on the American side.
So it fairly easy to understand why someone would, on encountering such a difference, assume it was America that changed - this one just happens to be an exception, is all.
Another one that often trips people up is usage of ‘gotten’ - rather than being a change on the American side, this is one that was once in common use in English and just fell out of use on the UK side at some point after the divergence of the two nations.
Come back when you have four elements named after one poxy little village. We’re lucky the names don’t all end in -iöm quite honestly.
Although is still does exist in UK English in the commonly-used (in the press at least) phrase “ill-gotten gains”
OK, according to Wikipedia, metalic aluminium was first isolated by Oersted or Wöhler, although Davy had already found evidence of the element’s existence, and given it a name. The article also says that the form “aluminium” came not from Davy himself, nor from Oersted or Wöhler, but from an anonymous (but, we can be confident) British reviewer of Davy’s book. In any case, it is apparent from that article that aluminium soon became the accepted term, including amongst American chemists, until Webster decided to change it, as he also arbitrarily decided to change the spelling of colour, honour, and various other English words. (In a typical bit of Wikipedian misleading waffling, it is implied that “aluminum” may have been in “common usage” in America, as opposed to amongst chemists. This not actually backed by the cite they give, and is clearly nonsense. Aluminium at this time was a laboratory curiosity, and would virtually never have been mentioned by anyone but a knowledgeable chemist.)
To sum up, the element’s existence was discovered in Britain, and it received its accepted name in Britain (though not from Davy). Although not the very first name to be applied to it, aluminium quickly became the accepted name for it, used in Britain, used by the Swede or German (precedence seems to be disputed) who first isolated the metal, and used by those Americans aware of its existence until Noah Webster decided to mix things up.
This site claims that Davy was writing alumium five years before he started using aluminium, then switched to aluminum before settling on aluminium :