taking the thread on a turn, i liked the little bit about Colbalt, Re:The word comes from the Greek kobalos, 'rogue', which was the source also of the German malicious spirit of mines called a kobald, associated particularly with troublesome rubbish among the good silver ore. That rubbish actually contained a lot of arsenic and sulphur, which accounted for its evil reputation, as it was a danger to health as well as 'poisoning' the ore and making the silver more difficult to extract. In 1730 the element now called cobalt was extracted from this apparent waste rock and so its name has a direct etymological link with the goblin.
O Sacks had half of this information in Uncle Tungsten, (ie, kolbald, being a german word for a goblin, or mischief maker, and being a trouble some spirit in the ore, and giving its name to the element, but didn't take the word back to the greek)
platnium has an interesting origin too,
