this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2025
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Copper ium? Gold ium? Lead ium? Mercury ium?
If we're trying to fix inconsistencies in English, the periodic table is barely worth mentioning. Why are read (reed) and read (red) spelled the same? Why don't cow and tow rhyme?
We should probably just abandon English for something better planned like Esperanto.
I'm honestly a fan of having the option to use standardised/latinised chemical element names.
Cu = Cuprum = Copper.
Hg = Hydrargyrum = Mercury. Hydrargyrum is still sometimes (very very rarely) used in English.
Pb = Plumbum = Lead. The French for lead is plomb, for example. Would clear up a lot of confusion with homographs. We already use plumb in English, as in plumb line. (The fact that it's plumbum, not plumbium, does undermine the whole aluminium>aluminum argument obviously).
Argentum instead of silver. Plenty of languages use a variation of that already. English already uses argent in some contexts, like heraldry.
Same thing for natrium instead of sodium, also common to have a variation of that in plenty of languages.
IRC Silicium was the originally proposed name for silicon. Plenty of languages also use a variation of that.
I picked these various elements because they end in -um rather than -ium when described by their Latin names. Because I think it is funny to complain about aluminum ending in -um.
TBH in the past, I've argued both for the -um ending, and for the -ium ending. It really annoys some people. It's even more annoying, when they realise that you've managed to annoy them with such a pedantic point.
Another one is skeptical/sceptical. "I think you'll find it comes from the Greek, so it should be with a k."
Or the plural octopus. "I think you'll find it comes from the Greek, so it's octopodes. Octopi is certainly wrong, because it doesn't come from latin."
I think I may be an energy vampire.
Cuprum, Aurum, Plumbium, Hydrargyrum.
They don't exactly end in -ium but close enough
It's plumbum. Notice how they all end in -um? Just like aluminum? You almost caught the nerd joke.