rec.puzzles Archive

The name of what element ends in "h"?

language/english/element Restored

This entry was in an earlier release of the archive and is restored here.

Problem

The name of what element ends in "h"?
Show solution
Bismuth.

"The Elements" by Tom Lehrer
Sung to the tune of "The Major-General's Song" from Gilbert & Sullivan's
"The Pirates of Penzance":

There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,
Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium
And gold and protactinium and indium and gallium
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.

There's yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium
And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium
And strontium and silicon and silver and samarium
And BISMUTH, bromine, lithium, beryllium and barium.

There's holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium
And phosphorous and francium and fluorine and terbium
And manganese and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium,
Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium
And lead, praseodymium and platinum, plutonium,
Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium
And tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium
And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.

There's sulfur, californium and fermium, berkelium
And also mendelevium, einsteinium, nobelium
And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc and rhodium
And chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin and sodium.

These are the only ones of which the news has come to Ha'vard
And there may be many others but they haven't been discavard.