• Question: Why do some of the elements on the periodic table have different letters to the actual name?

    Asked by demilouise123 to James, Marcus, Martin, Rob, Suzanne on 19 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Suzanne McEndoo

      Suzanne McEndoo answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      Most of it is historic. So Gold, for example, is Au, because the latin for gold is aurum. Lead (Pb) is plumbum in latin (lead pipes -> plumber!!!!), silver (Ag) is argentum, copper (Cu) is cuprum, etc.

    • Photo: Martin Zaltz Austwick

      Martin Zaltz Austwick answered on 20 Mar 2012:

      Some elements are named after their names in Latin – a lot of scientific words come from Latin or Greek. This is because English takes a lot of words from those languages, and because Rome and Greece were very active in the sciences.

    • Photo: Marcus Gallagher-Jones

      Marcus Gallagher-Jones answered on 21 Mar 2012:

      Also It was classically considered the language of the smart. We were invaded by the romans so people with higher social status spoke latin. The romans also lauded the Greeks who were way ahead of their time in terms of science, arts and philosophy. The sameis mostly true for the scientific names of animals.

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