[nathanbedford]

Thanks for the education, and the photo.

I guess I had always thought that the difference between silicone and silicon was simply a matter of regional pronunciation. I refer to the pronunciation because I dictate my replies and I simply dictated "silicone" and kept blithely on ignorant of what I was missing out on.

[TXnMA]

You're welcome -- but, as I said, I was mostly trying to lighten up an otherwise blah MLK Day...

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However, I must admit that one of my patents involved mounting a micromachined silicon pressure sensor chip with screen-printed siliconE rubber -- onto an alumina ceramic substrate with thin film aluminum metal conductors on it.

With my Texian drawl, my presentations on the subject were so confusing that I adopted the British "aluminIum" pronunciation for the metal -- and borrowed my Massachusetts colleages' "twang" for the semiconductor -- and pronounced it as they did: "silicAHn".

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But I bailed out of MA -- back to God's Country -- before I started

"...driving my HondER AccAHd to a pAHty -- where I pAHked my cAH. in the yAHd..."

LOL!!