"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message
...
And don't forget aluminium. It's much more
fun than our aluminum. Aluminium feels like
a long, hilly sleigh ride, what?

Yes, it's odd. We in UK do have non-i words - laudanum, lanthanum; but
both sides have helium, or even a metal, chromium.

Wikipedia talks about the derivation of the name for the element:

"British chemist Humphry Davy, who performed a number of experiments aimed
to synthesize the metal, is credited as the person who named aluminium. In
1808, he suggested the metal be named alumium. This suggestion was
criticized by contemporary chemists from France, Germany, and Sweden, who
insisted the metal should be named for the oxide, alumina, from which it
would be isolated. In 1812, Davy chose aluminum, thus producing the modern
name. However, it is spelled and pronounced differently outside of North
America: aluminum is in use in the U.S. and Canada while aluminium is in use
elsewhere."

So after Davy had made his first proposal, with no N in it, and his
colleagues had made the very sensible suggestion that the element should
have a name that was more similar to the ore alumina, it seems that the
original name was aluminum (the American spelling) and then the spelling
vacillated between -um and -ium: I hadn't realised that even in the US
the -ium spelling was once used, until Noah Webster became involved.

But I see that the official IUPAC spelling is -ium, with -um regarded as an
acceptable variant. OK, we won that argument, but we lost the sulphur/sulfur
one :-)