If you don’t bother to carefully research the definition for a term that is outside your area of expertise, then you can look like a mixed-up fool. That’s what Dr. John Livingston did in an article (blog post) at the Gem State Patriot News on October 7, 2021 titled We’re being “alloyed.” His first paragraph says:
“I see the word ‘alloyed’ being used in print and the electronic and social media with increasing frequency. I have always known what the word meant in the metallurgical sense, but when referring to a privilege or a ‘right’ I had to look it up. It means according to Merriam’s ‘something added that lowers value.’ Synonyms include the words—'adulterate, befouled and corrupted’. I saw the word used both by Jason Riley and on Fox in the context of the welfare state providing ‘an unalloyed good’. I like the usage in this context. Welfare benefits are in fact an example of an ‘alloyed good’. The value of the lives that such programs are applied to in the long term are devalued and marginalized. The short-term gains—and we were always told that these programs were to provide a bridge to being self-sufficient, have been more than offset by the unintended economic consequences that are the result of incentivizing behaviors that in the end fail to benefit individuals, families, and societies at large.”
He didn’t really know what alloyed meant in a metallurgical sense. (I definitely know since I am a retired metallurgist). Perhaps he looked it up in an older Merriam Webster dictionary, like the 2004 new edition, that only has the following two brief following definitions for alloy:
“[1] a substance composed of metals melted together; [2] an admixture that lessens value.”
If he had looked for the noun at the Merriam-Webster web site he would instead have found THREE definitions - where the first metallurgical one inspired the third other he liked:
“[1] the degree of mixture with base metals: Fineness.
[2] a substance composed of two or more metals or of a metal and a nonmetal intimately united usually by being fused together and dissolving in each other when molten.
[3] an admixture that lessens value or an impairing alien element.”
My copy of Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language (College Edition 1962) has more detailed descriptions. They include two different metallurgical senses, beginning with a negative one for precious metals (which is the basis for lowering value), and a neutral, general one for mixtures of any metals:
“Noun: 1] the relative purity of gold or silver. 2] a metal that is a mixture of two or more metals or of a metal and something else. 3] a less valuable metal mixed with a more valuable one, often to give hardness, hence 4] something that lowers the value or goodness of another thing when mixed with it. Verb: 1] to make (a metal) less valuable by mixing it with a cheaper metal. 2] to mix (metals). 3] to debase by adding something inferior.”
How about the web site for the Oxford English Dictionary? It has the following definitions for alloyed (as an adjective) and again begins with one for precious metals:
“{1} Senses relating to metals:
[1] Of a precious metal: mixed with a less valuable metal in order to lower its standard or quality without this being apparent, or to improve its durability; (specifically) debased in this way.
[2] Of a metal: combined with another metal or (less commonly) a non-metallic element so as to form an alloy.
{2} Figurative uses.
[3] Of a quality, feeling, experience, etc.: containing a base or undesirable element; mixed, adulterated.”
Wikipedia has a good article on Fineness, which explains it as follows:
“The fineness of a precious metal object (coin, bar, jewelry, etc.) represents the weight of fine metal therein, in proportion to the total weight which includes alloying base metals and any impurities. Alloy metals are added to increase hardness and durability of coins and jewelry, alter colors, decrease the cost per weight, or avoid the cost of high-purity refinement. For example, copper is added to the precious metal silver to make a more durable alloy for use in coins, housewares and jewelry. Coin silver, which was used for making silver coins in the past, contains 90% silver and 10% copper, by mass….”
Fineness for gold is described by karats (aka carats), where pure gold is 24 karat. 18 karat is 75% gold. 14 karat gold, used for jewelry, is harder and more durable, nominally 58–1/3% gold.
Dr. Livingston’s third paragraph begins with another mixed-up claim that:
“Since twenty years after its’ founding the modern day Democratic Party has been the party of racism, Jim Crow, grinding segregation—and not just in the Southern states but places like Shaker Heights, Upper Arlington, Bethesda, Beacon Hill Back Bay, Swarthmore, and Bryn Mayr.”
Republicans had switched racist places with the Democrats after the civil rights bill passed in the 1960s, which is described in the Wikipedia page on the modern Southern strategy by the Republican party.
His fourth paragraph misspells RINO as the animal RHINO, as I have described previously in another blog post on August 9, 2021 titled Is that a RHINO or a RINO?
The image of pouring aluminum came from the Library of Congress.
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