Wordorigins.org

Samarium, element 62, is named after samarskite, the mineral from which it was first isolated. The mineral, in turn, takes its name from a 19th century Russian mining official, Vasily Samarsky-Bykhovets.¹

Samarium was isolated in 1879 by French chemist Paul Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran who gave the element its name.²

Samarium has the chemical symbol Sm.

¹Oxford English Dictionary, samarskite, 2nd Edition, 1989, Oxford University Press, accessed 17 October 2009, http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50212576.

²Oxford English Dictionary, samarium, 2nd Edition, 1989, Oxford University Press, accessed 17 October 2009, http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50212571. 

Promethium, element 61, was discovered multiple times over the first half of the 20th century. The first was in 1924 by Italian scientists Luigi Rolla and Lorenzo Fernandes, who published their results in 1926. That year, Smith Hopkins and Len Yntema of the University of Illinois also announced discovery of the element. The American team dubbed the element illinium, after the university. From the 5 June 1926 issue of Nature:

X-ray analysis confirmed the theory and showed the presence of element number 61 in those fractions. [...] The name assigned to the element is Illinium (Il).¹

But neither discovery could be confirmed.

Then in 1945, Jacob A. Marinsky, Lawrence E. Glendenin and Charles D. Coryell at Oak Ridge National Laboratory finally managed to isolate the element and have the results duplicated. They dubbed their discovery promethium. Due to the war, publication of the discovery was delayed for several years, and on 30 June 1948, the Syracuse [NY] Herald-Journal had this:

The two chemists chose the name prometheum for Prometheus, the Titan in Greek mythology who stole fire from heaven for mankind’s use.²

Promethium has the chemical symbol Pm.

¹Oxford English Dictionary, illinium, 2nd Edition, 1989, Oxford University Press, accessed 16 October 2009, http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50111959.

²Oxford English Dictionary, promethium, 3rd Edition, September 2009, Oxford University Press, accessed 16 October 2009, http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50189861. 

Praseodymium, element 59, and neodymium, element 60, have similar etymologies and their discovery, as well as their existence in nature, are bound up with one another. In 1841, Swedish chemist Carl Gustaf Mosander discovered a substance that he believed was an element. He dubbed it didymium, after the Greek δίδυμος (didymos), or twin, because the substance was found with cerium and lanthanium. Mosander was wrong about it being an element, but the name was apt, as didymium turned out to be a combination of the metals which would be known as praseodymium and neodymium. From an 1842 issue of the Chemical Gazette:

Cerium, element 58, like tellurium and uranium, was part of a fad at the turn of the 19th century for naming recently discovered elements after heavenly bodies. In this case, cerium is named for Ceres, the asteroid/dwarf planet, then regarded as a planet, which had been discovered in 1801. Ceres was, of course, the Roman goddess of agriculture; our word cereal comes from her name as well.

Cerium was discovered in 1803 by Swedish and German chemists working independently: Jöns Jakob Berzelius and Wilhelm Hisinger in Sweden and Karl Martin Klaproth in Germany. Berzelius got the honors of conferring the name on the element. William Nicholson writes about the discovery in 1804 in the Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and the Arts in an article titled:

Account of Cerium, a New Metal found in a Mineral Substance from Bastnas in Sweden.¹

Cerium has the chemical symbol Ce.

¹Oxford English Dictionary, cerium, 2nd Edition, 1989, Oxford University Press, accessed 14 October 2009, http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50035902.

Lanthanum, element 57, was discovered in 1839 by Swedish chemist Carl Gustav Mosander. The name comes from the Greek λανθάνείν (lanthanein), meaning to escape notice, to lie hidden. From William Brande’s 1841 edition of his Manual of Chemistry:

Another metallic oxide, which, as it has hitherto lain concealed in oxide of cerium, he designates Lantanum (λανθάνείν, to lurk).¹

Lanthanum has the chemical symbol La.

¹Oxford English Dictionary, lanthanum, 2nd Edition, 1989, Oxford University Press, accessed 13 October 2009, http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50129718. 

Garner’s Modern American Usage is one of the bestselling usage manuals on the market and it has just come out in a new, third edition. Picking or recommending a usage manual is a tricky business. Usage goes to the heart of a writer’s personal style and what is a good manual for one writer, publication, or genre, may not be right for another. (The Associated Press Stylebook is a great manual for journalists, not so much for anyone else.) In this case, any recommendation is complicated by the fact that this is a third edition—should those who have and use an earlier edition run out and buy the new one?

Bryan Garner has a long bibliography on English writing and usage, in particular on legal writing. He certainly well deserves to be called an “authority.” He is, however, firmly in the prescriptivist camp and something of a curmudgeon; he has his opinions on what makes good writing and unabashedly presents them as the correct and only way to write well. Although this can be a distinct advantage for those who want a style manual that gives clear and concise directions. And to his credit, Garner is not a knee-jerk prescriptivist. He recognizes that there is such a thing as a language change and does, reluctantly it seems, base his opinions more on standard practice than on his own personal preferences. So his advice is not usually unreasonable.

So, should you buy this book? 

Barium, element 56, was discovered in 1808 by British chemist Humphry Davy. The name comes from the Greek βαρύς (barys), meaning heavy. Davy writes in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1808:

I shall venture to denominate the metals from the alkaline earths, barium, strontium, calcium, and magnium.¹

But the Greek root was in use to denote various substances made with the element before Davy isolated it. The name barytes was given to such substances. From William Hamilton’s 1791 translation of Claude Berthollet’s Elements of the Art of Dyeing:

Solutions of lime [...][and] barytes, are not decomposed.²

Barium has the chemical symbol Ba.

¹Oxford English Dictionary, barium, 2nd Edition, 1989, Oxford University Press, accessed 12 October 2009, http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50017669.

²Oxford English Dictionary, barytes, 2nd Edition, 1989, Oxford University Press, accessed 12 October 2009, http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50017961. 

Cæsium, or cesium as it is usually spelled in the United States, is the fifty-fifth element. It was discovered by German scientists Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff in 1860. Cæsium is the neuter form of the Latin adjective cæsius, meaning bluish-gray. It is so called because spectral analysis of the element reveals two bright lines in that portion of the spectrum. From an 1861 issue of the London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine:

A faint blue line not due to strontium or potassium or to the lately discovered cæsium.¹

Cæsium has the chemical symbol Cs.

¹Oxford English Dictionary, cæsium, 2nd Edition, 1989, Oxford University Press, accessed 11 October 2009, http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50031116.

Xenon, element 54, was discovered in 1898 by British chemists William Ramsay and Morris Travers. The pair had discovered krypton and neon a short time before. Their choice of a name comes from the Greek ξένος (xenos), meaning stranger or foreigner, presumably because the gas is so rare in the earth’s atmosphere. Ramsay and Travers wrote in the Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science that year:

The last fractions of liquefied argon show the presence of three new gases. These are krypton [...] metargon [...] and a still heavier gas, [...] which we propose to name “xenon.”¹

Xenon has the chemical symbol Xe.

¹Oxford English Dictionary, xenon, 2nd Edition, 1989, Oxford University Press, accessed 10 October 2009, http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50288476. 

This must be video Friday. Here we have a short clip of Jesse Sheidlower talking about the inclusion of obscene words in dictionaries. There is a single use of fuck, so it may be NSFW depending on your environment.

Hat tip to the OUP Blog.