elements – A Box Of Chocolates

The majority of chemical elements have names ending in “-ium”. In British English, we also have “aluminium” as opposed to the American “aluminum”, but we also have “tantalum” and “platinum”, so oddly the usual “-ium” ending has a couple of exceptions, as is common with spelling, grammar and word formations. The periodic table generally shows the order of discovery in how the names are formed. The older elements tend to have less regularly-formed names such as “phosphorus” and “antimony”, then after a certain point several half-hearted attempts to regularise them (e.g. “hydrogen”, “nitrogen”, “oxygen”) ensued, but it’s all rather haphazard.

The individual groups sometimes have some kind of order imposed on them. All the halogens, even the transuranic tennessine, end in “-ine” and no other element does. All the noble gases except helium end in “-on”, but this is rather spoilt by the names “carbon” and “silicon”. In a way, it makes sense that helium should have a different ending because it isn’t a typical noble gas, having only two electrons in its sole orbital as opposed to eight, as the others have. Incidentally, the noble gases are easy to contemplate in physical terms because they all consist straightforwardly of single atoms with regularly increasing weight. Oganesson, which is a transuranic noble “gas”, has a melting point of 52°C, but it can’t really exist in bulk. It would, I’m guessing, be a non-metal and therefore an oddity being so heavy and yet not a metal.

There have been two systems of nomenclature for elements which are either not yet discovered or unfamiliar. One of them imposed Sanskrit numeral prefixes, though only “eka-” and “dvi-“, i.e. one and two. This was where there were gaps in the periodic table, so for example gallium was originally called “ekaäluminium”, or perhaps “ekaäluminum” because the predicted metal hadn’t been discovered yet. This system is obsolete as all the holes in this portion of the table have now been filled. There is also the issue of what happens towards the end of the periodic table, where new elements have been discovered on a semi-regular basis. This system uses Greek and Latin numerals as prefixes for “-ium”, as in “ununoctium” for oganesson, but the numbers are chosen so as not to produce ambiguous abbreviations. They consist of the atomic number in decimal and yield three-letter symbols rather than the more usual two- or one-letter ones, which makes sense because these elements don’t meaningfully participate in chemistry owing to their instability. It would of course be possible to name all the elements in this way, producing a word like “nulnulhexium”, or possibly just “hexium”, for carbon, and “septoctium” for platinum, but this is unnecessary. One thing which somewhat bothers me about these names is that they use the decimal base rather than something which seems more fundamental such as hexadecimal or binary, or perhaps a base which matches the length of the sequences in the periodic table itself, which would give the elements systematic names matching their groups. They’re not as neat as they might villa .

The ending “-um” is clearly straightforwardly from the Latin neuter second declension, and there are also the “-on” endings from the same Greek declension. It seems to have connotations of “inanimate thing” in this context, so for example gallium is “Gaul thing”, i.e. the thing named after the country of France. There doesn’t seem to have been the kind of drive to neutrality which exists in astronomical naming. For instance, the constellation Scutum used to be called Scutum Sobieskii, but the second part was dropped, I presume because it refers to Poland, but polonium is still called that. This location naming business has led to the Swedish village of Ytterby, population 3 000, giving its name to no fewer than four elements (ytterbium, terbium, yttrium and erbium) due to the discovery of a dark, heavy rock in the area. Other elements are named after Stockholm and Scandinavia in their own way (holmium and thulium) for the same reason, and there’s also scandium. This seems disproportionate.

You will be aware though that the majority of elements ending in “-um” have an I before that ending, so the question arises of why there are exceptions. Aluminium is the oddest one of these because it varies according to American and British usage. The metal was discovered by Humphry Davy by electrolysis from alumina, which is aluminium oxide, and he originally called it “alumium”. In 1812, he changed the name to “aluminum” but this was difficult to maintain because of its lack of conformity. It got adopted by the general public in the US but not by American chemists, whilst in the Commonwealth it was uniformly “aluminium”. Canada, though, uses “aluminum”, as it’s generally more American than the rest of the Commonwealth, and also more American than Ireland come to think of it. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) recommends “aluminium”.

Even so, there are four other elements like this, namely molybdenum, lanthanum, tantalum and platinum, and these always use that form. All of the other “-iums” always use that form too. Platinum was the first element to be given a name ending in “-um” officially after discovery, so it could be that the convention of inserting an I was yet to be established. All of the elements discovered prior to it ending in “-um” in Latin have no I: plumbum, aurum, argentum, ferrum, hydrargyrum. However, “zinc” is cadmiæ. Hence there are two other questions. Firstly, why did they start sticking an I in in the first place? Following that, why are there later discoveries without an I? Molybdenum was discovered before they started putting it in, and the first one with an I is tellurium. Tantalum was named long after it was discovered and lanthanum was discovered quite late. It’s distinctive in that like actinium it’s the name of a whole series of similar elements. Tantalum is presumably called that because Tantalus wasn’t called “Tantalius”.

Hence it does make sense, historically, that platinum has no I. Platinum has strong symbolic value compared to the other platinum metals, which are relatively obscure, being used, of course, for the platinum anniversaries and the jubilee, the only one in the history of any of the home nations, so it’s appropriately rare. It also turns up in platinum discs and platinum blond hair. There is, however, no “Platinum Age” or a platinum medal. The latter is easy to understand, since it would involve disrupting an established system and render previous gold medals invalid, and the older version of the age system was thought up before platinum was known in the Old World. It was, however, known in the New, being found in river deposits in South America before the Christian Era. It’s one of the densest and least reactive metals, has a very high melting point and is very hard. In spite of all these qualities, pre-Columbian artifacts made of platinum do exist, such as a mask and jewellery, occurring in present day Columbia and Ecuador.

Platinum is actually the most widespread platinum metal. Osmium and iridium, the heaviest elements of all, are not widely found on the surfaces of planets because they sink to the centre during their worlds’ molten phases. However, being an even-numbered element, platinum is more abundant than some of the others by virtue of that alone. Palladium is considerably rarer and osmium and iridium are mainly associated with their density rather than their use as precious metals. Osmium is the rarest precious metal of all, and also the densest, and is used in alloys to make pen nibs and in electron microscopy. It slowly oxidises in air and the fumes it gives off can cause blindness and lung damage. Iridium is well-known as the sign that non-avian dinosaurs were wiped out by the Chicxulub Impactor, as small celestial objects do not exhibit the stratification of larger ones due to their low gravity and often low temperature. Ruthenium, rhodium and rhenium are also platinum metals. They’re all useful as catalysts, famously in the case of platinum itself. The anticancer drug cisplatin contains it, and works like most anticancer drugs by interfering with DNA replication.

It may be just me, but I consider platinum blond hair as gendered in this culture. I’ve never been a fan of fair hair, on me or others, in æsthetic terms, but the technique for producing the effect is academically interesting.

Of course, the reason I’ve chosen to blog about this today is the fact that it’s the Jubilee, but I wanted to do so in a way which didn’t partake of any controversy between royalist and republican sentiments, so here it is.

Shamelessly nicked from here, and will be removed on request, but I regard this as an ad for the OU course this is taken from

I generally resist medicalisation, and I’ve previously written on ADHD, so this isn’t primarily going to be about that issue in spite of the illustration. Nonetheless it’s there, and it means that like many other people, perhaps even everyone, the cog that represents me doesn’t fit well into the social machine, which is a problem for both society and myself. I would also say that my ADHD is just something which came to the attention of educational psychologists and medical professionals in the ’70s, when it was called hyperactivity, and is an aspect of my personality among several which entails a poor fit with society. In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a problematic work per se but maybe somewhat salvageable, there’s often a category at the end of each set of disorders labelled “not otherwise specified”, which is the wastebasket taxon as it were, a “diagnosis of elimination”. As a healthcare professional, I’m aware that the textbook cases are the exception, and most of the time people have an array of signs and symptoms which can’t be easily pigeonholed, and the real puzzle is why anyone at all actually has the same condition. Leaving that aside, it’s also unclear if it’s appropriate to view mental health analogously to physical health at all, and there’s the social model of disability. Hence I will assert myself, controversially, as being “neurodiverse, not otherwise specified” and leave it at that. Strictly speaking this is a neurodevelopmental condition rather than a mental health one, but let’s not get even more bogged down.

All that notwithstanding, a few days ago someone asked me what my plans were. I misunderstood the question, thinking I was being asked about how I planned to generate an income in the long term while it was really about our relationship, which of course I won’t go into here, except to say that a plan to generate an income can be very important to a relationship because it’s nice to be in a position to take care of someone well and have enough money to help others, and there is of course the psychological benefit of being gainfully employed, such as it is, and also occupied in something which connects to the common good in some way. It’s partly about good mental health and social obligation. That said, I completely reject the work ethic because most paid work is probably harmful in the long run to society and the person doing it, and the problem is finding work that doesn’t do more harm than good, and that’s rare. Even so, I do sometimes succeed in getting people to give me money for what I do. In particular, I currently have a couple of ideas for medium-term projects, which I’m going to outline here. In doing so, I’m going to yank this blog post in the direction of another blog of mine (which I hardly ever write), but these things happen.

I’ll use headings again, I think. At some point I might even work out how to do hyperlinks within the post, but that’ll probably involve tinkering with the HTML. I don’t think it can be done with the WordPress block editor (grr).

1. The Ethical Periodic Table

Right now I’m not sure what form this will take, but it seems to lend itself much more to something online, or perhaps an app, than a physical book. Like my second idea, this has been kicking around a while, and this is the thing. I’m pathologically procrastinative. In case you’re wondering about the wording of that last sentence, I’m trying to avoid using a noun to describe myself because I think that fixes one’s identity mentally in an unhelpful way. Anyway, it goes like this. The Periodic Table may be the most iconic symbol of science. Right now I’m hard pressed to think of another one, although the spurious “evolution” parade purporting to show constant progress and the chart of the “nine” planets come to mind, these however being very much popularisations. As well as having chemical and physical profiles, each element also has an ethical, social and political profile connected to how it interacts with human society. For instance, arsenic is very high in drinking water in Bangladesh, tantalum has been associated with civil war in the Congo and there is an issue with phosphorus and algal blooms, among many other things per element. My “vision” is to provide a clickable periodic table with links to information, which I hope will be regularly updated, to balanced social profiles of each element, and I’m also curious as to whether there’s a pattern here: do some groups of elements present bigger problems than others and are there possible substitutions? This clearly lends itself much more to a computer device treatment than a book of pages, although one of those books with tabs might work. This suggests it could be an app as well as a website.

2. Corner Shop Herbalism

I detest the tendency for certain exotic herbs to become pushed and regarded as miracle cures and the answer to everything. I think this distorts research and is often environmentally unsustainable. I also think there’s a lot of gatekeeping in my profession which does not serve the public interest, but at the same time I’m aware that many people lack the necessary knowledge to deal with their own health problems easily, particularly in the realm of diagnosis. Consequently, for decades now I’ve had the idea of producing a book called ‘Corner Shop Herbalism’, which is about using herbal remedies which can easily be obtained over the counter or as invasive weeds or other common species in a foraging style, while maintaining their sustainable use. I’ve already planned this book to some extent and it covers a surprisingly large number of species, probably totalling more than a gross. This would be accompanied by various other chapters about when to seek professional help and details of why herbal medicine is a rational, vegan and useful approach to health. This could also be a website, but it lends itself also to being a physical book because that makes it a field guide useable with no electronic adjunct, and who knows when that might become necessary? We all know of the Carrington Event, after all.

Publicity And Marketing

This is the difficult, possibly insurmountable, obstacle. Self-publishing nowadays is easy. You just organise your manuscript into printable form, get a cover together and have people order it. People have different sets of skills, and the ability to publish without approaching a publisher replaces the problem of getting yourself published with the problem of publicity and marketing. This works fine for some people if they also have an aptitude in those areas, but it usually fails. I have a Kindle Fire, and I do recognise the considerable ethical issues with Amazon of course, but one thing I see a lot is a very large number of ebook adverts and recommendations. I have never followed up on any of these. Although I’ve advertised my business profusely myself, my usual response to an advert is to wonder what’s wrong with the product that it needs to be pushed. You don’t see ads for potatoes or petrol because people recognise the importance of those in their lives and they sell themselves.

Advertising is ethically and practically complicated. The German “Anzeige” translates both as “advertisement” and “announcement”, and I find this enlightening as to the nature of advertising. At its best, if you believe in the fruits of your labour as enhancing to potential customers’ quality of life, you still need to make them known to the public, and this is absolutely fine. However, the quality of goods and services often seems to be in inverse proportion of how heavily something is advertised, which supports my tendency to become suspicious of a product. There was a fairly prominent advert for the British Oxygen Corporation in the 1980s CE which depicted a lake full of flamingos which they claimed had previously been lifeless and that they had managed to restore to a healthy state. This immediately provoked the question in me whether they had done something dodgy more generally and were trying to boost their image. It isn’t relevant whether they actually did this, but if this kind of suspicion is often raised, it can make publicity counter-productive. On the other hand, maybe few people think like this. Regardless, there’s a tension between the contrariness of people generally and getting your product out there, and I don’t know how to resolve this.

I never pay for advertising now because of my history with it. The only advertising which ever worked was the Yellow Pages and by that I mean that no other form of paid advertising got me a single client. With the Yellow Pages, it worked to a limited extent and then, oddly, about half way through one year of advertising it suddenly cut off completely and I never got another customer (for want of a better word). I am still mystified by this. It’s clear that online advertising and other such activity killed the Yellow Pages, but there was no gradual decline in my case. It just stopped dead with no period of tapering off. After that, I cancelled the advertising and relied on word of mouth, which is of course very useful.

How to apply this to books though? Is the kind of marketing and publicity applicable to a herbal practice, and apparently not very, comparable to that of a book? It would seem to involve other aspects of publicity such as talks, walks, courses and signings, the first two of which I’ve done often and fairly successfully in terms of raising the general profile of herbalism but not clients. Would this work for a book? Is it possible to put together a course based on the ethical periodic table idea?

Many people worry about their image on the internet, and their data being used for nefarious purposes. Whereas these are legitimate concerns, mine are not in this area. From the start, I’ve thought of behaviour online as consisting of postcards. Everyone can see what you’re doing, but there are so many of them the chances of being noticed are minute. It’s like the lottery – the odds of winning are insignificant. In some places the odds are stacked against you, as for example with YouTube. As far as reading is concerned, there’s the issue of what might compete with the time which could be spent reading your own writing, and it’s notable that many people don’t even venture forth from social media to bother reading the content. I am guilty of that to some extent myself, but also watch myself so that I do it as little as possible. There’s much to be said about social media and personal data, but I won’t say it here because most of it is only relevant to my writing in terms of constituting a distraction from it. Consequently, I will do some promotion of the work on Facebook and Twitter, but don’t anticipate much response. How one would actually succeed in getting a response is another question, and I have no answers. I do know that my own efforts at search engine optimisation haven’t yielded much.

It’s easy to imagine a conspiracy or malice here, but in fact the answer is far more likely to be the impersonality and volume of the internet which causes this. Therefore, anything one does in this respect needs to be done for its own sake, and not to get an income or make a living. What one actually does to make a living is unknown, and as far as I can tell impossible. I’m always overawed by people who manage to have a full-time paid job because it is so far beyond my capabilities and I have no insight into how people do it. Consequently, I just do things which I consider worthwhile, and I definitely consider these two projects to be valuable, so I’ll be doing them with no expectation of a significant response. This is galling, but I’m used to it. I still don’t know how I’m going to survive though.

That’s all for today.