Talk:Sulfur/Spelling/Archive 1

Spelling

Why is it that the world sans Britain wants "f" in Sulfur, while it's "ph" in others (Phosphorus, Telephone) TELEFONE?

Sulfur has a Latin root. The Latin alphabet contains an f. Phosphorus has a Greek root. The Greek alphabet contains a phi. Go figure. User:Shimmin

AFAIK, the Romans themselves used PH when transcribing the Greek letter Φ ("phi"). Today that letter sounds "F" in Greek, but perhaps it wasn't so at the time.Jorge Stolfi 23:16, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

But why doe they say, that "sulphur" is the traditional British spelling? Is this a retroactive graecisation? 62.46.175.173

Well obviously you can't spell it is BRITAIN. ps. It should be sulphur 82.42.127.81 19:45, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm surprised this title hasn't been given an NPOV rant. I'm pretty sure it should be sulfur (as it's more popular) but it could be considered POV because it technically is!

I'm not sure that sulfur is more popular. KingStrato

FYI, the IUPAC standard spelling is "sulfur" –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 19:05, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

That's not the point. Sulphur is the traditional British spelling, it's the way I was taught to spell it. I was also taught to use colour, honour and centre. We don't argue over how they are spelt so why do we with sulphur/sulfur? I shall continue to use sulphur and accept that other people use sulfur. I am, until proved otherwise, unwilling to accept that sulfur is the more common spelling. Given that sulphur is used in india I would imagine there's quite a few people use that spelling. KingStrato 10:39, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Sulfur is the technical spelling, but Sulphur is an accepted variant. Likewise, while Aluminium is the correct spelling, Aluminum is an accepted variant.

Surely if one wants to produce an encycolpedia in English one should spell in English, not "American English". Sulphur is the primary spelling of the word, sulfur is a varient which has come about with a local dialect.

smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 16:42, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I am aware that the IUPAC decided to go with 'Sulfur', but that decision always struck me as being a bit strange. The OED lists many instances of the word through time including: 13## - soufre, 1390 - sulphre, 1420 - sulphure, 1549 - sulfure, 1595 - sulphur (which is the first reference to this particular spelling) and eventually going down the list we get to the first reference to ‘sulfur’ in 1953. Furthermore, ‘sulfur’ doesn’t even get an entry in the dictionary, merely a note under the alternate spellings. (From which you could also choose “4-7 sulphre, 5-7 sulphure, 5, 7, 9 (now U.S.) sulfur, 6-7 sulpher, (4 soufre, soulphre, 5 solfre, 6 sulfure, sulfre, sulphyr, 7 sulfer), 5- sulphur.”)

I’m not an expert on the roots of words but under etymology it says “:--L. sulfur(em), sulphur(em)” which means “normal development of Latin", this suggests to me that both spellings seem valid, though whilst 'sulphur' was common from the 1590's onwards, 'sulfur' appears to have become popular in America from the 1950's onwards. As for "This spelling has begun to replace its variant in educated circles", I would say it hasn't got very far... I'm not aware of any my lecturers using the 'accepted' spelling in the time I've been at University... --Shastrix 19:36, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

• Why does this seem so weird? I am guessing this is one of strangest arguments ever heard on Wikipedia. The correct spelling is S-U-L-F-U-R. The other spelling is S-U-L-P-H-U-R. Case closed, you are dismissed. We do not need all this junk cluttering up the discussion page. I really do not understand why it matters. The only thing of immediate importance is that only one type is used in the article. Now quit messing up the talk page!--uki--71.145.143.245 14:19, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

If you think this argument is strange - or if you are about to register a complaint about the apparent preferance for US spelling - take a look at the furore caused by Wikipedia following the IUPAC preferred spelling of "aluminium" over "aluminum": Talk:Aluminium/Spelling --Danward 18:05, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

• • It seems to me that it's you that are strange. As far as I can tell, the person is not arguing anything. They are just wondering why the IUPAC adopted sulfur instead of sulphur since it doesn't make sense to them. They are not suggesting as far as I can tell that anyone change the naming of the article or anything of the sort (unlike occurs with the aluminium article). It is simply a interesting discussion of background and history and logic of the choice of IUPAC. Of course, what they are talking about is OT and is best left for discussion elsewhere. However I don't get why you've gotten so worked up about it. Just tell them that their discussion, although interesting, is not about improving this article and so is best left for elsewhere. Nil Einne 15:22, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Nice try regarding the Latin versus Greek thing but let's face facts: American English is a bastard of the English language, it has numerous words which are simplified forms of the correct spelling, is it because Americans cannot spell I wonder? Stutley 13:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm English and I also have to say the above comment doesnt make sense. English is clearly a bastardised version of french, german, celt, latin, greek et al!--Alex Marshall 12:14, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't have any clue to whether or not this will help at all, but I found out that the spelling of S-U-L-F-U-R is derived from the Latin spelling of S-U-L-P-H-U-R. So by this information, it seems to me that the correct spelling nowadays should be sulfur. But that's just my opinion. Check my information on the website http://periodictable.mysterymaster.com/sulfur.html. Thank you, Taekwondo_Tiger_Girl_22

The correct spelling in the English language is SULPHUR. You may choose to spell it how you wish but it will not be correct use of English. Stutley 11:08, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I notied that the disambiguation page has sulphur spelt with a ph. I think this should be changed to sulfur for the sake of continuity, regardless of personal opinion (I spell it sulphur). --SHCGRA Max 16:55, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

If any one has the time to have a look, theres also an issue with Acid suphate soil (acid sulphate soils, acid sulfate soil and acid sulfate soils). Theres four separate pages for essentially the same thing. Clovis Sangrail 11:08, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Merged by User:Vsmith into acid sulfate soil. By the way, your posting time is off. You can autosign your posts with four tildes (~~~~). Femto 16:36, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Since the English actually invented the language and not the Americans or Romans perhaps we should change its spelling here. If we had wanted to spell sulphur with an "f" we wouldn't have started spelling it with a "ph". So since there are probably more people who actually spell the word correctly why don't we change the entire article to sulphur with a "ph". solidus469 14:46, 15th July 2007

No, this will not happen. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (chemistry)#Element names. The Chemistry Wikiproject has decided that in any chemistry context in Wikipedia, sulfur is to be spelled with an F.

Ben 14:24, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Very well but it is still incorrect. solidus46914:27, 17th July 2007

No, it's not incorrect, it is a convention.

Ben 20:35, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes it is, why should the whole world have to spell sulphur differently just because America spells it that way? solidus469 8:21 18th July 2007

Sadly - not everyone in America is linguistically challenged. I find it very unscholarly to A.) presume that an entire nation uses one "variant" and even more-so to think that you can have some sort of impact on the new direction of linguistics by doing so little as changing the classically accepted norm of a given term which, if you can't readily tell, seems to be the only thing this is attempting.

I object to saying 'sulfur' is used in Australia and New Zealand; I've never seen it spelled like that before in either country.

IMHO sulfur looks stupid. And, my science teacher spells it Sulphur, and she is always right ;-) so SULPHUR! tractakid (talk) 18:26, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I have NEVER seen the spelling "sulfur" before reading the article (probably because I live in the UK) and too be honest when spelt like that the word looks 'ugly'. "Sulphur" look so much better than "sulfur". Just my opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.0.56.1 (talk) 20:53, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Stutley,your remark above Was made by a genuine Bastard

sulphur

My god it should be known as sulphur not sulfur, change it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.252.149.183 (talk) 04:16, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

See WP:SULF. Materialscientist (talk) 04:22, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Spelling confusing

"with the f spelling becoming dominant in the medieval period." directly contradicts "The element has traditionally been spelled sulphur in the United Kingdom (since the 14th century),". I would correct this this myself but I have found in the past that these sort of corrections are immediately undone. 78.86.203.235 (talk) 10:13, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Could you clarify the contradiction? One part talks about English language, another about Latin. Materialscientist (talk) 10:18, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

The IUPAC adopted the spelling "sulfur" in 1990, as did the Royal Society of Chemistry Nomenclature Committee in 1992. This spelling has begun to replace its variant in official use, unlike aluminum, a spelling which is not commonly used outside North America.

This is rather confusing. The preferred spelling for aluminium according to IUPAC is aluminium, aluminum is only an alternative (but not preferred) spelling. So it's not surprising that aluminum is not used outside the US and there's no reason for aluminum to replace aluminium in official literature, indeed it's the other way around. Nil Einne 14:57, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Why do we even need to mention aluminum at all? There are lots of words that are spelled differently in different countries. Joe --68.0.212.218 15:55, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

• • I don't really get why this is so important. I mean, come on! Arguing about the way "sulfur(a.k.a. sulphur) is spelled! And as for aluminum(a.k.a. aluminium), same thing! In my science class's text book, it spells sulfur and aluminum a certain way, and I bet that in Britain it is spelled a different way. So what? I don't get it. Oh well, Taekwondo_Tiger_Girl_22 04:30, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I can understand sulphur vs sulfur. Sulfur is easier to spell, quicker to write, but is pronounced the same. However aluminium and aluminum are not pronouced the same, which is why that shouldn't be changed. (Not that I agree with the changed to sulphur's spelling, I can just understand why it got through while aluminium's didn't.)Lordbanana 19:38, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

If you change the spelling of sulphur to "sulfur" why not by the same logic change the word phosphorus to "fosforus". The ph spelling in the name Indicates its roots in latten. The ph spelling is also a slightly softer sound than that of f.