Many chemical symbols seem strange at first glance because they have nothing to do with the name we now use for them. They simply come from Latin, which immediately explains why gold isn’t “Go” or “Gd” but Au. Silver is Ag (from argentum), lead is Pb (from plumbum), and iron is Fe (from ferrum). That plumbum is perhaps the most surprising of the bunch, if only because you can recognize the English word “plumber” in it.

The older and more classical a metal, the greater the chance that its symbol comes from Latin. This is certainly true for the metals that people knew and used in antiquity.

This kind of question works so well in a pub quiz because people have a rough familiarity with the material from school, but those Latin abbreviations are stored just outside everyday memory. That produces exactly that slight “should I have known that?” feeling. And once you’ve grasped the Latin logic, you can crack a whole cluster of questions like this in one go.

Gold sits at atomic number 79 among the other noble metals on the periodic table, arranged by the number of protons in the nucleus. Its characteristic yellow luster and chemical stability — it barely reacts with other substances — have made it attractive throughout history for jewelry and coinage.