aluminium/aluminum

just got back from the supermarket and felt the need to look something up and share the knowledge. Whilst walking around trying to remember what we actually wanted I got to wondering about the whole aluminium/aluminum thing. Now I call it tin foil anyway, but our new house has aluminum siding and I struggle with saying that.
So why are there 2 versions of this word?
and more importantly, who is correct, us Europeans or the Americans?
So thanks to The Word Detective for this:
we can pin the whole mess on Sir Humphry Davy, the English chemist who discovered the stuff back in 1807. Indulging in the perversity of which historical figures seem fond, Davy named his discovery not "aluminum," nor even "aluminium," but "alumium," basing the term on the Latin "alumen," meaning "alum," a substance drawn from the same mineral that had been used since ancient times for dyeing hides and the like. This is all a bit confusing, but we can take comfort in the fact that Davy was apparently a bit befuddled too. Around 1812 he decided that the proper name of his discovery was not "alumium," but actually "aluminum." Almost immediately Davy was besieged by other scientists who pointed out that if Davy would just add an "i" to make the term "aluminium," it would fall into line with such other substance names as "sodium" and "calcium" and, in their words, "sound more classical." So Davy named it yet again, this time to "aluminium," and the "ium" form became standard in both the U.S. and Great Britain.
Unfortunately, many people in the U.S. had evidently stopped listening by that point and continued to call the stuff "aluminum," and this spelling became so widespread that it was eventually adopted as the standard in the U.S. "Aluminium," however, is the official spelling used by international chemical societies. One hopes that Sir Humphry Davy, wherever he may be, is at last happy.
Well I feel better now, don't you?

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow

ok you know what, I don’t think the flipping spell–check thing on here works…
5 points for yesterdays one.
more later....

with a zed

Trying to get a roofing company to come out to the house the other day I had the by now completley usual and preditable game of spelling my name.
18 years of living in England meant that EVERY time I said my name I automatically spelt it, especially as people were keen to put a 'w' in.
Is that with a w? they would say, I could never understand this compulsion to foist this exta unnecessary letter on me so after about the twentyith time this happened I said , no with an x and a z. Silence and even over the phone I could almost here the ? wha?.
The Canadians, bless them, don't appear to have this urge to promote the letter w as much as their English cousins.
But one of the roofing companies (remember, that's where I started this) well, the woman I spoke to was hilarious. We got ot the taking of details part of the call and I automatically spelt my name after saying it. She sounded like this was the most bizarre collection of letters she had ever heard. F? yes I said, OH?, uh huh, EL?, yep, EE?, yeesss, WHY?, that's correct. And then an almost inaudible hmmm. This is Toronto, the city the United Nations has designated as the World's "most ethnically-diverse city" five times in a row? And she has a problem with the name made famous by, well, yes. Beverly Hills Cop- Axel Foley, a WWE wrestler- Mick Foley and Dave Foley, Canadian actor/writer/comedian. Not much of a line up is it?
It's a fairly popular name back home in Ireland, we even had Foley neighbours. On one visit home I had to book tickets and went into the familar spell-my-name thing and the woman I was speaking to was most insulted that I would think she couldn't spell such a simple name.
Well none of the roofing contractors called back to arrange an appointment so I have to start all over again.
yes I did notice the spelling mistake yeterday, but only after I posted.

I decided to start this blog on a whim. I hadn’t really looked at too many others, which is what I did yesterday.
OMG
I wonder how many there are?
Seriously, in just 30 minutes I had seen blogs about the cutest dogs (just icky-sweet photos of puppies), a watch my beard grow (daily photo of beard, he says it's more interesring than watching paint dry and you know you are going to try find it), a day-in-the-life-of-a-white-witch, lots of normal life stuff and some eccentric life stuff. Some of it very well written some-not so much.
I guess I fit right in and probably won't be bothered by writers block again.
I have put a link up to a random selection of some of our photos, have at look and a laugh at the hair and how young we were....

out of range

Slight writer's block today, not really sure where to start and while staring at the screen was reminded that this is in fact the third monitor we have had for this computer. In 6 months.
The first one developed this strange thing of being 'out of range'. huh? It was right there, 4 inches from the computer. We brought it back and got the second one.
The second one, slowly and gradually took longer and longer to flicker into life. Which gave lots of time to read the little stickers on it - f engine it says and Ultra Fast Response Time.
The final straw with 2 was the day it took 19 long minutes to come on. Yes I timed it, as I've said too much free time. We brought it back and got good old number 3 here.
But not without a bit of a discussion in the shop. The 19 year old Customer Sales Assistant told us it would have to be sent off for repair, 2 to 6 weeks.
In the meantime we could buy another monitor and when 2 came back we could return the 'spare' for a refund. Well the moral of the story is 19 year old Customer Sales Assistants can be intimidated into giving you the last display monitor, finally a benefit of getting old(er).
3 is looking good so far.

days of our lives

As the job search continues I have far too much free time.
Which gives me too much time to worry.
I worry that without work to think about my brain will begin to athropy. What if I become one of those people who have to be told that throwing heavy things straight up in the air is a bad idea? What if I need the warning labels - 'do not iron clothes whilst wearing' 'this pack of salted peanuts contains nuts' ?
If I don't get a job soon, I know I'll start watching daytime soaps and then I'll really be in trouble.
As a distraction, I thought I would have a go at a blog.
We'll see how it goes.....