Author Topic: lutetium  (Read 8794 times)

TRex

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lutetium
« on: September 17, 2010, 10:15:23 AM »
I don't understand why this is a common word.

ensiform

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Re: lutetium
« Reply #1 on: September 17, 2010, 10:32:25 AM »
Because very few people read, say, use, or understand it.

TRex

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Re: lutetium
« Reply #2 on: September 17, 2010, 10:41:23 AM »
Because very few people read, say, use, or understand it.
I agree, but don't understand how that supports it being classified as a common word.

ensiform

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Re: lutetium
« Reply #3 on: September 18, 2010, 10:45:26 AM »
Because those few people are very, very smug?

mkenuk

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Re: lutetium
« Reply #4 on: September 18, 2010, 11:03:27 AM »
It reminds me of the wonderful song by the American comedian-cum-math(s) Professor, Tom Lehrer. In one of the songs on his album 'An Evening (wasted) with Tom Lehrer', he sings, to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan's 'Modern Major General' , the names of every one of the chemical elements, accompanying himself on the piano at the same time. 'Lutetium' is included somewhere in the lyrics. Or am I the only one old enough to remember Tom Lehrer?

ensiform

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Re: lutetium
« Reply #5 on: September 18, 2010, 11:38:30 AM »
Or am I the only one old enough to remember Tom Lehrer?

Isn't that like saying, "Am I the only one old enough to remember George III?  What a great king.  You youngsters wouldn't have heard of him."  Age or lack of it is never an excuse for not knowing something historical!  I have never, ever, understood why people think "Oh, that's before my time" is a legitimate excuse for ignorance.

Because, see, Tom Lehrer was famous, and he recorded albums, which are still around.  And you can hear him now on YouTube!  Or look him up in books, or Wikipedia!

My favorite Lehrer song is "The Vatican Rag," a really sly dig at Catholic dogma.  Also, "The Hunting Song" and "A Song For World War III."  The man was/is a genius.

TRex

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Re: lutetium
« Reply #6 on: September 18, 2010, 12:05:59 PM »
Or am I the only one old enough to remember Tom Lehrer?
I don't think the question is meant in an historical manner -- and I certainly didn't take it as such. I know of George III because I've studied history, but I certainly don't have a remembrance of him.

ilandrah

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Re: lutetium
« Reply #7 on: September 18, 2010, 12:13:20 PM »
Quote
Age or lack of it is never an excuse for not knowing something historical!  I have never, ever, understood why people think "Oh, that's before my time" is a legitimate excuse for ignorance.

That's hardly fair. Especially when we are talking about a word that was labelled as common.
One can hardly be expected to know all the details of all humanity stretching back through the ages.
We all have general knowledge that affects our daily lives - these would be the words that fall under common (I would think)
Then we have areas of specialised interests and knowledge - these would be rare words. Yes?

For example
As a living history enthusiast, I have a very specific knowledge of the Charlemagne empire, the skills and materials in use at that time to craft items, such as clothing, in an accurate historical manner. I can tell you about the art of war from that time, training regimes and the specific weapons and armour used at that time.
But I would not be able to tell you very much at all about the Chinese culture of the same period.

Whether the difference is 1000 years or 30 years would hardly make any difference, one would still be required to research something that does not appear in their daily lives.

TRex

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Re: lutetium
« Reply #8 on: September 18, 2010, 12:40:46 PM »
I remember (in the sense that I recall the experience) having suggested making all monetary units common words. The suggestion was rejected in favour of judging whether a particular monetary unit was well-known.

For the sake of consistency, I think the same should apply to chemical elements. Whilst elements such as hydrogen and oxygen and aluminium (the official spelling according to scientists!) and uranium would be common, lutetium and hassium would be rare.

birdy

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Re: lutetium
« Reply #9 on: September 18, 2010, 09:24:05 PM »
I must say I don't remember hassium and lutetium, but I certainly remember Tom Lehrer.  I think my favorites were "There Once was a Man Named Oedipus Rex" and "Be Prepared."  Not sure if those were the titles, but they were the first words.  I can still pretty much sing (croak?) them.

Alan W

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Re: lutetium
« Reply #10 on: September 28, 2010, 01:29:38 PM »
Those who know my nerdish ways will understand that it's taken me a while to respond to this question, because I felt it necessary to research our handling of all the element names.

Unfortunately, Tom Lehrer's song is not a definitive guide because, as he notes at the close of the song,

Quote
These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard,
And there may be many others, but they haven't been discarvard.

At any rate, as far as I can discover, there are only 16 chemical element names that we currently class as rare. We class as common the remaining 79 element names between 4 and 9 letters. Lutetium is merely one of many rather obscure words in this group. (Of course, some of these quite long words will never appear in a puzzle, but I prefer that every word be given the correct classification as far as possible, since I don't know how I might want to use the word list in future.)

Set out below are the words I think should switch from common to rare, and those I think could remain as common. These proposals are based on my impressions of which words people are likely to have encountered outside the confines of chemistry class (and Tom Lehrer's song). I'd be happy to consider any suggested changes.

Switch to rare:

actinium, americium, berkelium, beryllium, europium, fermium, francium, gallium, germanium, indium, lutetium, neptunium, niobium, nobelium, osmium, polonium, rhenium, rhodium, rubidium, ruthenium, samarium, scandium, selenium, tellurium, thallium, vanadium, ytterbium, yttrium

Leave as common:


aluminium, aluminum, antimony, argon, arsenic, barium, bismuth, boron, bromine, cadmium, calcium, carbon, chlorine, chromium, cobalt, copper, fluorine, gold, helium, hydrogen, iodine, iridium, iron, krypton, lead, lithium, magnesium, manganese, mercury, neon, nickel, nitrogen, oxygen, palladium, platinum, plutonium, potassium, radium, radon, silicon, silver, sodium, strontium, sulfur, thorium, titanium, tungsten, uranium, xenon, zinc, zirconium
Alan Walker
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TRex

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Re: lutetium
« Reply #11 on: September 28, 2010, 02:25:50 PM »
Those who know my nerdish ways will understand that it's taken me a while to respond to this question, because I felt it necessary to research our handling of all the element names.

Quite an undertaking, I'm sure. Many, many thanks.

Quote
Set out below are the words I think should switch from common to rare, and those I think could remain as common. These proposals are based on my impressions of which words people are likely to have encountered outside the confines of chemistry class (and Tom Lehrer's song). I'd be happy to consider any suggested changes.

Switch to rare:

actinium, americium, berkelium, beryllium, europium, fermium, francium, gallium, germanium, indium, lutetium, neptunium, niobium, nobelium, osmium, polonium, rhenium, rhodium, rubidium, ruthenium, samarium, scandium, selenium, tellurium, thallium, vanadium, ytterbium, yttrium

Leave as common:


aluminium, aluminum, antimony, argon, arsenic, barium, bismuth, boron, bromine, cadmium, calcium, carbon, chlorine, chromium, cobalt, copper, fluorine, gold, helium, hydrogen, iodine, iridium, iron, krypton, lead, lithium, magnesium, manganese, mercury, neon, nickel, nitrogen, oxygen, palladium, platinum, plutonium, potassium, radium, radon, silicon, silver, sodium, strontium, sulfur, thorium, titanium, tungsten, uranium, xenon, zinc, zirconium

I definitely agree with those proposed for a switch to rare.

IMO, I would also switch to rare: bismuth, cadmium, fluorine, iridium, palladium, strontium, thorium, and zirconium; possibly also antimony, bromine, and xenon. (Based purely on subjective feeling: I don't have any statistics.)

Is it safe to assume that if sulfur is common, that sulphur will be also? (What is the preferred spelling in Australia?)

Also, if tungsten is common, will wolfram also be common?

rogue_mother

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Re: lutetium
« Reply #12 on: September 29, 2010, 02:53:48 AM »
I definitely agree with those proposed for a switch to rare.

IMO, I would also switch to rare: bismuth, cadmium, fluorine, iridium, palladium, strontium, thorium, and zirconium; possibly also antimony, bromine, and xenon. (Based purely on subjective feeling: I don't have any statistics.)

Is it safe to assume that if sulfur is common, that sulphur will be also? (What is the preferred spelling in Australia?)

Also, if tungsten is common, will wolfram also be common?

I might quibble about selenium being switched to rare. Selenium is frequently mentioned as an essential trace element in the human diet, and selenium compounds are frequently used in anti-dandruff and anti-fungal preparations.

The only commons that I might vote to switch to rare might be thorium and palladium. In the United States, at least, there is no way that zirconium could be called rare. You can buy cubic zirconium jewelry at just about any corner jewelry store.

Like TR, I would expect the spelling sulphur to be on the common list. It seems to me that it is the usual way of spelling it in the U.S. However, I wouldn't think that wolfram would be considered common in the English-speaking world.
« Last Edit: September 29, 2010, 07:00:06 AM by rogue_mother »
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birdy

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Re: lutetium
« Reply #13 on: September 29, 2010, 12:34:30 PM »
I'd think palladium, thorium, and bismuth would be rare, but I agree with rogue_mother that I hear selenium and definitely cubic zirconium much more often.  And TRex, strontium seems to come up quite often, though I think mostly as strontium 90, maybe because of its relation to bones.

Alan W

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Re: lutetium
« Reply #14 on: September 30, 2010, 04:32:56 PM »
As usual, different people will have different ideas about what is common, depending on their interests. Those who take no interest in articles about nutrition may be less familiar with the word selenium than those who often read such articles. A person's age could have an impact, too. The Corpus of Historical American English shows that strontium and thorium were used more frequently around the 1950s than in more recent decades - related presumably to concerns about nuclear testing and fall-out.

My general rule is: when in doubt, make the word rare. So apart from zirconium, I will switch to rare the words raised by TRex. I'll leave selenium as a common word too.

Wolfram is actually common at present, but I agree with RM that it is really rare.

I think both sulfur and sulphur should remain common. The index on the Time magazine website gives 435 hits for the former and 459 for the latter, so although dictionaries label the ph spelling as mainly British, it seems to be widely used in the US. On the other hand, the f version has been recommended in recent years as the spelling for scientific use, so it is presumably not unknown in Britain. To answer TRex's question about Australian usage, searches at a couple of newspaper sites suggest sulphur is used more frequently, but sulfur is also used quite often.
Alan Walker
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