Talk:Non-ferrous metal

Definition?

What exactly is a non-ferrous metal? By definition, it pretty much anything which does not contain iron. But that's 2/3 of the periodic table. Without sources, I think the important part of non-ferrous metals are that they are economically important (= sold by the tonne, not by the troy oz), and that they are not iron or steel (not structural materials, can be magnetically separated from ferrous metals as scrap). That should cut it down to copper, aluminium, zinc, perhaps lead, tin, and nickel, and alloys thereof. That's what's on the London Metal Exchange's list of non-ferrous metals. [1] --Rifleman 82 (talk) 07:36, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Not all elements named as non-ferrous metals are metals. Selenium is named as non-ferrous METAL? It is only a half-metalloid such as carbon and phosphorus (graphite could also be named as "non-ferrous metal" by analogy to selenium). Tellurium is a metalloid.

79.191.195.142 (talk) 13:22, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

It seems that the definition changed now, but there used to be a joke about the definition of Chlorine-releasing compounds. Gah4 (talk) 23:06, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

did not pass DYK

Quite sad that this did not pass the DYK standards but hey, at least we managed to create a Start article out of it.--Lenticel ^(talk) 00:29, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Circular definition

"non-ferrous metal is any metal that is not ferrous"

OK, I could guess that myself, based on language structure. What then is a ferrous metal? The link ferrous metal provides info on the ferrous ion Fe²⁺. I'm not sure what ferrous metal really means — I can easily imagine the sets {Fe} and {Fe, Co, Ni} and {Mn, Fe, Co, Ni}, depending on magnetic and/or chemical properties to be associated with "ferrousness". Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 08:28, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this picture circulated. The article has come a long way since then and is improving.69.118.168.2 (talk) 20:47, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Even more, I suspect it doesn't have to be a metal. As and Se might also count. Gah4 (talk) 22:56, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

singular

There is discussion in some other pages about metals, related to singular or plural, where I find the singular more obvious. In chemistry, often enough one wants a generic halide for example, so not in the group sense. I note this one was also recently renamed. In any case, I am less sure it should be singular, than for some others. One doesn't want a generic non-ferrous metal quite as often. In any case, it should be discussed before being renamed. Gah4 (talk) 22:59, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't see that it really matters much one way or the other. People often get too hung up the so-called "rules" of English, coming up with all sorts of over-conceptualized arguments, when in practice it's all just idiomatic. Every rule in English has exceptions, except the rule that says every rule has exceptions. In most cases, a singular title is preferable and perfectly acceptable, like alloy or heat treating, but in many, many others it would just sound weird, such as Basic fighter maneuvers, aerobatic maneuvers, or Vikings. This come up a lot over at Kelvin, where some people argue that it's a unit and not a degree, and thus should be singular, while others say that a degree is also a unit and everything should be consistent. English is never consistent. We pluralize units like millimeters, knots, and radians and don't with others like Rankine, Kelvin, and Torr. There's no rhyme or reason to it other than it just the way people speak; and how the language evolved. Idiomatic. With non-ferrous metals, it could really go either way and still sound good to the ear. Zaereth (talk) 00:15, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes. It seems more important to me in some other articles. I was noticing that planet is singular, but the article has the word planets 301 times! I agree that singular is fine here, but maybe just a little discussion is good. Gah4 (talk) 00:57, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. Discussion beats edit-warring all the time. I'm just saying, sometimes you just have to play it by ear. It's like trying to give clear rules on the use of articles such as "the". Even the best experts like Tony1 are very challenged to precisely define their usage. (ie: in France and the UK people say "university" whereas in America it's "the university") I would say default to singular unless doing so would sound odd. In this case, it doesn't. I know that's a little like Michelangelo's questionably-useful advice, "If you want to carve an elephant, chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant." but there you have it. There's a danger sometimes in overthinking it. Zaereth (talk) 01:18, 10 February 2022 (UTC)