Do folks think alloy is a synonym for Al? I wasn't aware people had this confusion - perhaps it is more indicative of a population that is not fluent in science?
Worse than that, the average joe has no basic understanding of science. Why else would so many people in the world believe that the temperature cycles of the sun can be legislated by man to stem global warming? Today's climate of ignorance hearkens back to "flat earth" religious dogma where concensus "deniers" were outed as witches.