What is the name of the chemical Sulfur or Sulphur? [closed]

Is the chemical Sulfur or Sulphur?

Solution 1:

Sulfur vs. sulphur; the spelling difference is mainly a question of AmE vs other English speaking countries as suggested by the Grammarist:

• For the pale yellow nonmetallic element found especially in volcanic deposits, sulfur is the usual spelling in American English.

• Sulphur is generally the preferred spelling in nonscientific texts from outside North America, but sulfur is gaining ground in scientific writing throughout the English-speaking world

• The spelling distinction extends to derivative words such as sulfuric/sulphuric, sulfate/sulphate, and sulfide/sulphide.

Etymology:

• Usually English words spelled with 'ph' are derived from Greek, where the 'ph' represents the Greek letter ‘phi’, but in this case the ultimate source of the word is Arabic.

• The word, from the French soufre, entered English around the end of the 14th century. Both modern spellings have been in use for many centuries, but sulphur prevailed by a wide margin until the Americans adopted sulfur around the start of the 20th century as shown in Ngram.

It is interesting to note that:

• The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry did indeed officially adopt the sulfur spelling in 1990; in 1992 the Royal Society of Chemistry followed suit, issuing a press release adopting sulfur as the official international nomenclature for atomic element 16.

• But while this might seem to settle the case once and for all, it’s clear that not all practising scientists have adopted the spelling change. This is a good example of the difficulties of reforming established spellings, even in a relatively defined group of users.

(spellingtrouble.blogspot.it)