Spore elements
a vbeek (Thu, 23 Aug 2012 18:15:58 PDT)

I had no trouble at all understanding the term spore element. But that is because Dutch is my 1st languange and I don't know what my second should be.

I think the misunderstanding has to do with the spelling of the word spoor vs spore and throwing that into a translator.

In dutch you spell it sporen element (with an n at the end) and in german Spurenelement. Sporen means small quantity or very low concentration. You also would say sporen in Dutch when you refer to the ´seeds´ of a fern. So trace would be a fine translation of sporen.

And strange enough even dough I studied chemistry ages ago I never ever had to read a book in German.

If you say spoor in dutch then then you either refer to the actual railway or metaphorecally speaking traveling with the train.

German is my 2nd language, and I have trouble writing in it whenever I
try. Fortunately, the world's universal language for science is now
English (it was German when I was in grad school), so I have not had much
trouble on that score in the last several decades.

Jim Shields

I see various other articles I find via google seem to use the term "spore
elements" though I scanned them only briefly. Those articles appear to have
German or Dutch origins too. A quick search of the term "spoor elements"
did not reveal, for me,the term in connection with what I am used to
calling "trace elements".
However incorrect -the use of the term "spore elements" seems to be around,
albeit through mistranslation, and I admit that I have not heard it before.
When I read the term first, I expected it to refer to something mycorrhizal.
Peter (UK)

On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 7:49 PM, J.E. Shields <jshields@indy.net> wrote:

I think I see the tracks of this usage. In German, Spur means track (e.g.,
bear tracks in the woods) and trace (very small amounts). Spoor is
Afrikaans for track, from old Dutch "spor."

The article cited by Peter seems to have been translated from a German
original, and contains numerous mis-spellings and incorrect usages. It is
not a suitable reference for English usages or spellings.

Jim Shields

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Jim Shields USDA Zone 5
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