"-less" means "less than"? Or "lacking"?

[David Bowie]

From:    Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>

> So, "stainless" has no real-world referent with respect to steel? A
> seller can advertise carbon steel as "stainless steel," as long as he
> includes a disclaimer _inside_ the packaging that notes that his
> "stainless" steel may actually stain, under normal use?

> I don't know, Dave. It still seems kinda shady to me.

Well, that's because the "stainless" in "stainless steel" doesn't have a
real-world referent to *stains*, and, technically speaking, it doesn't
even have a single referent to a particular sort of *steel*. According
to the Stainless Steel Information Center (yes, even stainless has its
own trade group: http://www.ssina.com/), stainless steel is a low-carbon
steel with 10% or more chromium by weight (with the chromium being the
main thing, apparently), and there's more than 60 different grades  of
it, each with different properties.

So as long as the pots were made of low-carbon steel with 10% or more
chromium by weight, yes, they're stainless steel.

Apparently there's a book out there on the history of stainless steel:
Carl A. Zapffe's "Stainless steels". The use of the plural in the title
is intriguing.

(What *i* want is a good book on the history of nickel. Seriously. Maybe
i'll have to go look for the Nickel Information Center now.)

--
David Bowie                                         http://pmpkn.net/lx
     Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the
     house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is
     chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed.