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From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Subject: Re: Russian words in English
Message-ID: <CyHt14.JtB@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK
References: <ag.2.00098E4E@interaccess.com> <Cy8s7M.3vv@spss.com> <38um81$cfj@gordon.enea.se>
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 1994 15:43:49 GMT
Lines: 20

In article <38um81$cfj@gordon.enea.se> sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes:
>A nit: Mendelevium has atom number 101, so it cannot reasonably
>have been a known substance in 1917.

It was in 1955, at the U of California, Berkeley, that it first saw
the light, so I wonder in what sense its name is a Russian word.
Did a Russian-speaking researcher call the new element _mendelevij_
and an English-speaking one anglicise that by modifying its ending
to _-ium_?  Sounds very unlikely.  Anyway, isn't there some kind of
international forum that gives names to newly discovered elements?
Names which are not, strictly speaking, native to any language?

Btw, Md was obtained by helium-ion bombardment of einsteinium-253.
Is that a German word?  Or a Yiddish one?

-- 
`That's yer oan problem, Judas', they telt him.  `It's nae concern tae us.'
Ivan A Derzhanski (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk/chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)  (The G-- G--)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,   Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House E113, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Pk Rd, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
