David Nicholson wrote: " Sulphur is the normal English spelling of the word I doubt that that the spelling "sulfur" is used anywhere else other than USA." You might be right (but see below), David, but there is a reason for it. The spelling sulphur suggests that the word is of classical Greek origin. It's not. The classical Greek word for sulphur is theion, a word used in the names of many chemical compounds (e.g. thiosulfate). (Obviously chemists don't follow the same rule that botanists do about combining Latin and Greek words into the same compound word.) The Italian word for sulfue, zolfo, and the Spanish word azufre are as you can see spelled with an f. So it's not just here in the USA that the phony Greek ph is rejected. Jim McKenney