Quote:
Originally posted by 911 in SC
Sorry for the OT, but the one word that irks me is aluminum. Why would it be called aluminium...   Gotta' love those crazy Brits!
Mike
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My Uncle moved over here from Britain in the mid 70's and I followed him over about 7 years ago. Now I don't know if this story is true, but I like it...
According to the story it once was aluminium here, just like the rest of the world.
Very early on in the industrialization of America, a company that was dealing with aluminium in some form produced all their company advertising, stationary, etc with the word 'Aluminuim' misspelled as 'Aluminum'. Rather than have to pay to have everything reprinted with the correct spelling, they decided that they would change the 'correct' spelling, and so it has been 'Aluminum' here ever since.
I think 911teo's expalination is more plausible!
As for this chap, he is almost definitely British and I would guess that this is from a Top Gear episode.
What a fortunate fellow!