writers.com newsletter

a monthly electronic publication from
Writers on the Net
http://www.writers.com
Vol. 7, No. 11
November/December 2004

IN THIS ISSUE:
LOST IN CYBERSPACE or WHAT HAPPENED TO THE NOVEMBER ISSUE?
OUR GIFT TO YOU
~~CLASS SCHEDULE~~
~~SPECIAL OFFER~~
ROOTS: "aluminum" and "aluminium"
PUNCTUATION POINTER: the semicolon
~~NEWSLINKS~~
QUOTATION

LOST IN CYBERSPACE or WHAT HAPPENED TO THE NOVEMBER ISSUE?

We hope you missed us last month. The November newsletter was written and emailed to its publisher before deadline, but, unbeknownst to its writer, it disappeared in cyberspace. The writer blithely left town for a few days without Internet access thinking all was well. By the time the writer returned and realized what had happened, it was simply too late to send it out.

It wasn't the only important deadline-related document that went astray that week for the writer. As any of you freelancers know, missed deadlines mean missed income. We won't state the obvious lesson learned here, but we hope our painful education serves as a reminder to the rest of you!

OUR GIFT TO YOU

Instead of our usual opening feature this issue, we have a special holiday "gift" for all of you -- a brand-new Writers.com Web site (http://www.writers.com)! We hope you will explore it soon as we've compiled a great deal of what we hope will be useful and interesting free information for writers. Many of our past feature articles (and other material) from this newsletter are now on the site. So are tips on grammar, usage, punctuation, and the like. (We'll be adding our "roots" articles eventually.) We have this year's monthly newsletters archived and will continue posting them on the Web site two to three weeks *after* they come out and without the material that is no longer timely. (In other words, you'll still want to receive the email version every month.) There's a vast new listing of recommended links to resources for writers on the Web, too. Plus our Amazon.com-associated bookstore has also been updated.

We hope, too, that you will be able to more easily access information on our services and classes with the new content and design. It should all load relatively quickly and be easily viewed on just about any browser. The only design problem we've noticed on some older browsers is that spacing between lines of text might go awry if your browser window isn't opened wide enough. On any browser, a too-small window will make portions of some pages "float" on top of other portions. Just widening your browser window (or re-sizing to a larger overall size) will fix both problems.

It's a big site with a lot of content so we are (unfortunately) sure we will continue to find mistakes that need correcting. If you discover any, we'd appreciate knowing about them. Email the webmaster at paula@writers.com.

ROOTS
"aluminum" and "aluminium"

Although a variety of menus are offered around the world for Christmas dinners, a Thanksgiving meal with turkey, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie ,and other traditional fare is unique to the United States. So, too, is another important element of the holiday -- aluminum foil. Foil is used to "tent" the turkey, cover the pie, wrap leftovers, and in other ways. Yes, the rest of the world has foil, but only Americans (and most Canadians) call it "aluminum"; other English-speakers refer to "aluminium."

The ancient Romans had many uses for a chemical they called *alum*: to help "fix" dye, for softening leather, in fireproofing, to make smooth paper, treat potable water, as an astringent (probably used to stop bleeding), and possibly as deodorant. In 1761, French chemist Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, who was instrumental in revising the system for chemical nomenclature, proposed that the base material of alum be called *alumine*. In 1787 Antoine Lavoisier, who often collaborated with de Morveau, identified *alumine* as an oxide of an undiscovered metal.

English chemist Joseph Black discovered a mineral in 1790 which he dubbed *alumina*, based on the French usage we just mentioned. Sir Humphry Davy, another English chemist, came along in 1807 and proved the metal Lavosier had identified actually existed. Davy named the element *alumium*. The brilliant Davy was the son of a wood carver and lacked the classical education of many of his fellow scientists. The university-types preferred calling the metal *aluminium* -- it sounded better to them and it went along with other elements with names ending with "-ium," like potassium, sodium, and magnesium -- all of which had also been named by Davy.

Davy changed the name to *aluminum* at one point, but finally, in 1812, agreed it was best to call it *aluminium* in 1812. Not that this cleared things up. Both spellings were used in England in the nineteenth century, but, "aluminium" was considered the only acceptable spelling in the U.S.

Throughout the nineteenth century, the metal captured the imagination of many -- including Charles Dickens and Jules Verne -- but it remained rare. French chemist Henri Sainte-Claire Deville developed the first commercial process for producing aluminum in 1854, but the metal was still literally more precious than gold.

In 1886, two men -- Charles Martin Hall in the U.S. and Paul Heroult in France -- independently (and almost simultaneously) discovered a commercially viable method for the production of the metal. Hall may have been responsible for popularizing *aluminum*, possibly through a misspelling on a flyer issued after he had patented his process in 1889. The official name used in both the United States and Britain in the field of chemistry, however, remained *aluminium*. *Aluminium* also became the prevalent spelling in Britain.

In 1925 the American Chemical Society decided to use *aluminum* in its publications and *aluminum* became the preferred dictionary spelling in the U.S. The official International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) spelling of the element remained *aluminium*. In 1990, the IUPAC formally adopted *aluminium* as the standard international name for the element. *Aluminium* is used in French, Dutch, German, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish; Italian uses *alluminio*, Portuguese *alum�nio* and Spanish *aluminio*. In 1993, IUPAC recognized *aluminum* as an acceptable variant, but still prefers the use of *aluminium*.

Wondering why some folks call aluminium/aluminum foil *tin foil*? Tin foil was available long before its aluminium/aluminum foil became available around 1910. In 1911 chocolate manufacturers were among the first to recognize the new foil's superiority (tin foil is less flexible than aluminium foil and tends to give a "tinny" taste to food wrapped in it). According to the Reynolds Wrap people (who else?) the U.S. Foil Company, parent of Reynolds Metals Company was founded in 1919 in Louisville, Kentucky to produce lead and tin foil. In 1926, the company began rolling aluminum foil and soon became the consumer's choice. Why "tin" is still used to describe other shiny metals (as in "tin cans") remains a mystery.

PUNCTUATION POINTERS
the semicolon (;)

A semicolon can be used to separate two independent clauses (or complete sentences) that are closely related in meaning. You might consider a semicolon as a connector that joins two parts of a single idea.

If each sentence can stand alone, then why not just use periods? You can -- and it would be perfectly correct. But a period indicates "full stop" -- the reader stops, then starts to read the next sentence -- the reader never receives the message "meaningful relationship."

Each of the examples below consists of two clauses that could both be sentences. The second part of each example comments on the first. By using a semicolon to join the two, you are reinforcing their relationship as well as conveying the ideas efficiently.

-- Erik is an excellent singer; he has an extensive range.
-- Writers.com is great choice for writing classes; students have been satisfied for ten years.
-- Sean Stewart is an award-winning writer; however, his books have never been bestsellers.

*Semicolons can also be used with complex lists. Components of a list are normally separated with commas:
-- He bought new CDS by Franz Ferdinand, The Black Keys, and Incubus.

* Sometimes, though, one (or more) of the list items already contains a comma. You can avoid confusion by using the semicolon :
-- She plans on visiting New York, New York; Washington, D.C.; Phoenix, Arizona; and San Francisco, California.

*The semicolon can also be used to clarify a sentence containing long and complex sequential components, especially if they contain internal punctuation:
-- Lord Winters left his second wife, Beatrice, in 1998; met Mary on a blind date that had been arranged by mutual friends; considered asking her to marry him, but never did so; finally managed to meet Sara, who became his third wife; and died shortly after their wedding without ever knowing that Sara was carrying his son, Harrison, who would inherit the title.

QUOTATION:

"Writing is both mask and unveiling." -- E.B. White

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