Astronomers use metal to mean elements other than hydrogen and helium.
Wow, Astronomers are lazy. It’s not hard to make up new terms for things when the existing ones clearly don’t fit. Heck, if making up a word was too difficult they could have used an arbitrary acronym.
Well, when most of what they have to work with is hydrogen, a whiff of helium, and a tiny smattering of literally everything else ever, it’s kinda hard to blame ’em. ;p
Not really. If you look at a periodic table, the vast majority actually are metals.
The vast majority are metals, and saying they all are is wrong (except in as much as authority within the clique is able to redefine such things). It’s also distasteful and lazy to formalise the misuse. I’d be embarassed if I were an astronomer.
Well, Wiktionary claims “metal” used to mean “to mine” a few thousand years ago, so I can’t blame them that much. The astronomers at least didn’t mess up the pronunciation again :-)
Wow, Astronomers are lazy. It’s not hard to make up new terms for things when the existing ones clearly don’t fit. Heck, if making up a word was too difficult they could have used an arbitrary acronym.
Well, when most of what they have to work with is hydrogen, a whiff of helium, and a tiny smattering of literally everything else ever, it’s kinda hard to blame ’em. ;p
Not really. If you look at a periodic table, the vast majority actually are metals.
The vast majority are metals, and saying they all are is wrong (except in as much as authority within the clique is able to redefine such things). It’s also distasteful and lazy to formalise the misuse. I’d be embarassed if I were an astronomer.
Well, Wiktionary claims “metal” used to mean “to mine” a few thousand years ago, so I can’t blame them that much. The astronomers at least didn’t mess up the pronunciation again :-)