The United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland), Ireland, South Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Jamaica, as well as other countries that use English as an official language use the same spelling rules, which have not been updated for several centuries. Meanwhile, in the United States, early in the 19th century, shortly after the U.S. gained independence, Noah Webster took on the task of publishing the first dictionary of American English. This was not easy, since every region of the country pronounced and spelled words differently, due to the scarcity of schools in the new country with its wide-open spaces. He added a lot of words to his dictionary that did not exist in British English, such as "skunk" (a black and white animal that defends itself by spraying predators with a liquid that burns their eyes and nostrils) and "squash" (a family of plants that produce several kinds of edible vegetables), names of things that did not exist in the Old World. But most famously, he changed some of the spelling rules: British "flavour, colour" American "flavor, color" centre, spectre --> center, specter aluminium --> aluminum licence --> license traveller --> traveler defence --> defense The Canadians generally use American spelling, but not consistently.
I'd heard that the element was originally called "aluminum" but the spelling was later changed to make it consistent with many other elements ending in "-ium". The Americans kept the orignal spelling while the rest of us used the more consistent re-write.
I think there's some regional dialect differences too, I pronounce it al-oo-MINI-um. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Some people make a distinction between "aluminum" the metal and "aluminium" the element - e.g. when used in chemical reactions.
Not boxing, no. It's from a 14th century phrase "to lead the ring", which is believed to be related to dancing... in a dance they possibly formed a ring with one person acting as the leader and everyone else following that lead. It now means the person who is the leader of a group involved in illegal (or simply unwanted) activity. The individuals are the ring, and he is the leader of that ring.
No, they're not the same. "Continual" means happening frequently but with intervals where it doesn't happen: e.g. My car suffers from continual breakdowns. "Continuous" means non-stop. The thing that is continuous has no intervals. E.g. The continuous flow of a river.
Sarkus is correct. However, in the USA today, the words are often used interchangeably. I'd say that the majority of Americans don't understand the difference anymore. Fortunately, you can usually determine the meaning from context.
I hope I'm not distracting here, but I had a similar "problem"once not long after I was married. I was reading a Fijian newspaper [my wife is Fijian] trying to pick up a few words here and there and came upon a story with the words "bati ni bulubulu." I knew "bati" meant "teeth" and I knew that "bulubulu" meant burial grounds or cemetery....So I asked my wife's brother if bati ni bulubulu meant "teeth of the cemetery" He literally nearly pissed himself laughing and then through his mirth and my ignorance told me it meant "edge of the cemetery" Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I believe the origin of the word "selfie" comes from the word "self". It's a photo of yourself, a selfie.
Before photography, people used to have to paint portraits of themselves, so they called them "self-portraits." I'm sure that when these portable telephones with built-in cameras came on the market, people probably called the pictures they took "self-photographs"... for about two months, because that's a tongue-twister. They could have shortened it to "selfoto" but instead it was chopped down even further into "selfie."
