If you pronounce this word Aluminium- why on Earth would Americans call it Aluminum? Are we just /that/ lazy? It has to have some type of origin. I've looked all over online for it. I'm only looking for serious answers, thank you.How is spell check going to tell me that word is spelled wrong? Aluminium is the right word.
Aluminium is made from Alumina, so Americans thought it made more sense to call it Aluminum rather than Aluminium. Many, many, many words in English have different American spellings because Mr Webster thought he could rationalise(rationalize) out the anachronisms that come with the spellings of words that are centuries old.
It's actually just a preference not unlike judgment vs. judgement.
Likable Lillian loves lovely, luminous, aluminum linoleum
Just for my two cents, Canadians also pronounce it Aluminum. It is one of those odd words that varies depending on regional usage. If you're looking for some higher reason why spell check is bugging you, its because the spell check software is likely set to English (U.S.) and not English (U.K.).
Basically, the guy who discovered it (who was British) named it Aluminum, but another British guy almost immediately said I like Aluminium better and most other British people agreed, and also felt that aluminium fit better with recently named elements like sodium, potassium, magnesium, uranium, helium, and so forth. Americans pretty much said Guy named it Aluminum, Aluminum it is. So, the extra i has never been added here... and since we've got platinum, molybdenum, lanthanum, and tantalum on our side, I don't think that elements end in ium, not um rule has much traction to it.
