The Americans have always spelled it as sulfur. The British used
to spell it as sulphur (so Singapore followed suit), but as
globalization progressed, more and more British chemists themselves
adopted the "sulfur" spelling, so gradually, for the purpose of
standardization, the "sulfur" spelling is encouraged over the
"sulphur" spelling among British Universities and Scientific
Journals.
The following passage is excerpted from :
http://www.rsc.org/delivery/_ArticleLinking/DisplayArticleForFree.cfm?doi=JM99101FP055&JournalCode=JM
Spelling of Sulfur
The new (1990) edition of IUPAC‘s ‘Nomenclature of
Inorganic Chemistry’ contains a table of IUPAC-approved names ‘for
use in the English language’. These include ‘caesium’, ‘aluminium’,
and ‘sulfur’ (spellings as given here). There is increasing use
of the ‘f’ rather than the ‘ph’ spelling for sulfur in
English publications, in particular the English language versions
of IS0 and European standards, and those British Standards
which implement IS0 standards verbatim. Furthermore, there is no
good etymological basis for preferring the ‘ph’ spelling. In view
of these considerations, the Royal Society
of Chemistry’s Nomenclature Committee has recently recommended
that RSC change to using the ‘f’ spelling in all its publications.
This recommendation will be implemented for RSC‘s primary journals
in 1992.
Alan McNaught
Manager, Royal Society of Chemistry
Journals
So that means Sg are lagging behind the AMe and British?!
lolx
