Metal

Metal (pronounced met-l)

(1) Any of a class of elementary substances, as gold, silver, or copper, all of which are crystalline when solid and many of which are characterized by opacity, ductility, conductivity, and a unique luster when freshly fractured.

(2) Such as substance in its pure state, as distinguished from alloys.

(3) An element yielding positively charged ions in aqueous solutions of its salts.

(4) An alloy or mixture composed wholly or partly of such substances such as steel or brass.

(5) An object made of metal.

(6) Formative material; stuff.

(7) In printing, as type metal, the stencils used to apply ink; the state of being set in type.

(8) The substance of glass in a molten state or as the finished product; molten glass in the pot or melting tank (mostly in technical use).

(9) As road metal, the crushed rock used in road construction; small stones or gravel, mixed with tar to form tarmac for the surfacing of roads.

(10) To furnish or cover with metal.

(11) In popular music, verbal shorthand for the genre heavy metal (but apparently usually not other variations (thrash; power; gothic; doom; twisted; black; molten; death)).

(12) In admiralty jargon, the total weight of projectiles that can be shot by a ship's guns at any one time; the total weight or number of a ship's guns.

(13) In heavy element astronomy, any atom except hydrogen and helium.

(14) In heraldry, a light tincture used in a coat of arms, specifically argent (white or silver) and or (gold).

(15) In rail construction, the rails of a railway (almost always plural).

(16) In mining, the ore from which a metal is derived (the use to describe the mine from which the ore is extracted is obsolete).

(17) Figuratively, the substance that constitutes something or someone; matter; hence, character or temper (now archaic and replaced by mettle).

(18) In the jargon of civil aviation, the actual airline operating a flight, rather than any of the code-share operators.

(19) In the jargon of drag-racing, a descriptor applied to the largest capacity (usually big-block) engines.

1250–1300: From the Middle English, from the Old French metal (metal; material, substance, stuff), from the Classical Latin metallum (quarry, mine, product of a mine, metal), from the Ancient Greek μέταλλον (métallon) (mine, quarry, ore).  The Greek work picked up the sense of “metal” only in post-classical texts, via the notion of "what is got by mining”; the original meaning was "mine, quarry-pit," probably a back-formation from metalleuein "to mine, to quarry," a word of unknown origin which may be related to metallan "to seek after" but there’s no evidence in support and it’s thought derived from a pre-Greek source because of the presence of -αλλο- (-allo-).  In the West, what defined a metal was based on the metals known from antiquity: gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, and tin.  The adjectival form (or or covered with metal) emerged in the late fourteenth century reflecting the advances in metallurgy.  The term metalwork is attested from 1724 and has been used to describe both functional and decorative endeavours and is a common title in technical education (al la woodwork).  Metal is a noun, verb & adjective and metallic is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is metals.

Human beings are of course made from soft, vulnerable flesh so metals have long been invoked in phrases demonstrating their (figurative) hardness such as “steely resolve” and “iron will”.  Sometimes these are personalized, Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013; UK prime-minister 1979-1990) dubbed the “Iron Lady” and Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898; chancellor of the German Empire (the “Second Reich”) 1871-1890) the “Iron Chancellor”.  Sir Eric Willis (1922–1999, premier of the Australian state of NSW (New South Wales) Jan-May 1976) earned the nickname “stainless steel”; sometimes used admiringly, sometimes not.  In Cockney rhyming slang, “brass” (an alloy of copper and zinc) was one of many forms used to refer to “a prostitute”; it was a clipping of “brass nail” (rhyming with “tail”, another of the historical nicknames for sex workers).

The entertaining, if not always reliable (the Friday Times is better), Pakistani site thenews.com.pk in 2021 reported Prince (King since September 2022) Charles (b 1948) had bestowed upon his daughter-in-law Meghan Markle (now “the difficult” Duchess of Sussex) the nickname "tungsten".  Nicknames have long been popular among the British aristocracy and have included such monikers as “duck”, “mule” and “melons” so for the duchess, it could have been worse.  Quite which of the qualities of tungsten Prince Charles had in mind isn’t known so it’s impossible to say whether he was impressed, intrigued or incandescent.  It’s all a matter of which of tungsten’s characteristics moved his thoughts because it (1) has the highest melting point of all metals, (2) is the heaviest metal known to have a biological role (some bacteria using tungsten in an enzyme to reduce carboxylic acids to aldehydes), (3) is strong and durable, (4) is highly resistant to corrosion and (5) has the highest tensile strength of any element.  However, its strength comes when it’s rendered into compounds whereas (6) pure tungsten is very soft.  So it’s hard to say but when told her father was unable to attend, Prince Charles volunteered to walk the bride down the aisle and give her away so there was that.

The doomed romantic poet: Portrait of Percy Bysshe Shelley at the Baths of Caracalla, depicted writing Prometheus Unbound, oil on canvas, painted posthumously, Joseph Severn (1793–1879), Rome, Italy, 1845.

Use of metals as similes could provoke controversy.  In 1820 the English novelist & poet Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866) published the essay Four Ages of Poetry, a work that while deliberately provocative was composed in an at least semi-humorous vein.  The essay’s theme wasn’t exactly kind to the work of more recent poets with poetry classified into four periods: iron, gold, silver and brass.  Although himself a published author, Peacock was an official of the East India Company (which “sort of” ran British India in the years before the Raj) and his more illustrious literary colleagues weren’t about to let the slights of “a colonial clerk” go unanswered, Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) answering quickly with Defence of Poetry (1821).  Predictably, the squabbles for some time raged in literary journals and there were even “letters to the editor” in the broadsheets.  Although it’s clear Peacock had a point to make in his essay, scholars believe he was no more serious in his critique than would be Nancy Mitford (1904–1973) in writing Noblesse Oblige: An Enquiry into the Identifiable Characteristics of the English Aristocracy (1956) but she triggered readers in much the same way and the barbs must have stuck because, a century on, the English poet & literary critic Ivor Armstrong “I.A.” Richards (1893–1979) included in Science and Poetry (1926) a refutation more strident even than that of Shelly.  Hell clearly hath no fury than a poet criticized.

Iron Butterfly, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (1968).  An early heavy metal recording, their previous album was Heavy (1968).

The use to describe a variety of loud forms of popular music (heavy; thrash; power; gothic; doom; twisted; black; molten & death-metal (there may be others, it’s a vibrant scene)) began with heavy metal, the term coming into general use circa 1970 to describe a genre which had evolved since what came retrospectively to be called the proto-metal pieces of the 1950s such as Link Wray's Rumble.  As a shortened form, “metal” appears to be used properly to reference only heavy metal, presumably because it came first, the other forms almost always identified with the modifier.  The use in popular music seems to have been picked up from counterculture literature, William S Burroughs (1914-1997) using the phrase "heavy metal kid" in the 1962 novel The Soft Machine.  That was not a musical reference but in the subsequent Nova Express (1964), extended the use to a metaphor for drug use and from there, adoption in somewhere in popular culture was probably inevitable; it was the 1960s.  The band Steppenwolf included the phrase “heavy metal thunder” in its single Born to be Wild (1968).

The lightness and heaviness of naturally occurring metals has been noted since pre-historic times, probably because of the interest in the malleability of materials which might be used to craft metal ornaments, tools and weapons and until the early nineteenth century, all known metals had relatively high densities, indeed that very quality of heaviness was thought a distinguishing characteristic which defined metals.  However, beginning in 1809, lighter metals such as sodium and potassium were isolated, their low densities demanding a definitional re-think and it was proposed they be categorised as “metalloids” but instead, that was reserved to later refer to a variety of non-metallic elements.  The term "heavy metal" seems first to have been used by German chemist Professor Leopold Gmelin (1788-1853) in an 1817 paper in which he divided the elements into non-metals, light metals, and heavy metals, based on relative density.  Later, “heavy metal” would be associated with elements with a high atomic weight or high atomic number and it is sometimes used interchangeably with the term “heavy element” although, two centuries on, there is criticism of the very usefulness of the now classical categories, the suggestion being they’ve become so diverse as to be meaningless.  Despite that, “heavy metal” in particular remains frequently used in both scientific and popular literature, the latter most often without any definitional rigor.  By comparison, presumably because their less associated with environmental pollution, “light metal” appears most often in association with metal trading, referring usually to aluminium, magnesium, beryllium, titanium and lithium.

The cosmological periodic table.  Chemists do at least agree on what metals are, heavy or otherwise.  Astronomers consider any element heavier than helium to be a metal, the distinction based on whether an element was created directly after the Big Bang (hydrogen and helium) or instead formed through subsequent nuclear reactions.  In the world of cosmology this is well understood but it can cause confusion among a general audience because it means elements such as carbon and oxygen are treated as metals, a most unfamiliar concept.

To astronomers, the production of metals is a consequence of stellar evolution.  Although metals lighter than iron are produced in the interiors of stars through nuclear fusion reactions, only a very small fraction escape (through stellar winds or thermal pulsations) to be incorporated into new stars.  For this reason, the majority of the metals found in the Universe are produced and expelled in the supernova explosions that mark the end for many stars.  This gradual processing of hydrogen and helium into heavier elements through successive generations of stars means that the metallicity of stars (the fraction of the mass of the star in the form of metals) varies.  Very old stars which formed from the almost pristine material of the Big Bang contain almost no metals, while later generations of stars can have up to 5% of their mass in the form of metals.  The percentage of metals in our star (the Sun) is around 2%, indicating it’s a later generation star.

1950 Jaguar XK120 (chassis: 670165 (aluminum body))

When it comes to money, and not just with precious metals like gold, the choice of metal matters much; aluminum can become quite precious.  Jaguar went to the 1948 London Motor Show thinking their big announcement would be the new XK engine, the twin-cam straight-six which faithfully would serve the line for the next forty-four years.  What instead stole the show was the test-bed, the roadster in which it was installed.  It was a sensation, the reaction convincing Jaguar's management to put it into production as the XK120.  However, tooling-up a production-line, even for a relatively low-volume sports car, takes time so the first 242 XK120s were hand-built with aluminum bodies affixed to an ash frame atop a steel chassis substantially shared with an existing model.  By 1950, the factory was ready for mass production and all subsequent XK120s were made with pressed-steel bodies although the doors, bonnet (hood), and boot (trunk) lid continued to be fashioned from aluminum; the later cars weigh an additional 112 lb (51 kg).  All the aluminum-bodied cars used OTS (open two seater (roadster)) coachwork and most were destined for the North American market, only 58 built with right-hand drive.  The most desirable of the XK120s, the record price for a road car at auction is US$396,000, realised in 2016 but those with a competition history have attracted more, a 1951 Roadster campaigned by the Scottish race team Ecurie Ecosse (Scottish Stable), sold in 2015 for £707,100 while the 1954 (steel) Competition Roadster that won its class at the Alpine Rally brought £365,500 in the same year.

1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL (chassis: 550028 (aluminum body)).

Intended for those planning to use the things in competition, the aluminum body for the 300SL Gullwing (W198, 1954-1957) was a regular production option, albeit a not inexpensive one although, given the processes involved, it may have been a bargain.  Reducing weight by 215 lb (80 kg), the aluminum bodies were hand-crafted in the motorsports department in Untertürkheim and then mounted on the spaceframes sent from the Sindelfingen factory.  Of the 1400 Gullwings, only 29 were built in aluminum, 26 of 855 in 1955 and 3 of 308 in 1956 so the option was taken-up only by two percent of customers.

Lindsay Lohan with metallic bags, London, 2014.

Adding to the desirability of the lightweights are the other modifications the factory made to improve competitiveness against the mostly British and Italian opposition.  Plexiglass windows, vented brake drums and stiffer springs were in the package, along with the Sonderteile (special parts (NSL)) engine with tweaked fuel-injection and a more aggressive camshaft, gaining 15 HP (horsepower).  Curiously, one option intended for use in motorsport actually added a little weight: the Rudge wheels, the seconds the knock-off hubs saved in the pits said to be worth the slight increase.  Available for any Gullwing, the Rudge wheels are one of the desirable features, like the fitted luggage, tool kit and factory documents, the presence and condition of which attract a premium at sale.  For some years, the record price at auction for one of these was the US$4.62 million for a 1955 model, paid in 2012 for a car which in 1980 had been bought by a German collector for US$57,000.  A new mark was set in 2022 at RM Sotheby's January auction at Scottsdale's Arizona Biltmore Resort when one crossed the block for US$6,825,000.

Ran when parked: 1956 300 SL “Alloy” Gullwing (US$9.4 million).

The price paid in 2022 was impressive but that was for a car in very good condition; what astonished some market analysts was the sale in 2024 of a “mostly complete” but dilapidated alloy-bodied Gullwing.  One of several “star items” in the auction of the contents of Rudi Klein's (1936-2001) legendary Los Angeles “junkyard”, at auction it realized US$9,355,000 which may appear extraordinary for a vehicle requiring extensive restoration (the estimates all “somewhere in six figures”) but it was about as “matching numbers” as things get (Chassis 198.043.5500872; Engine 198.980.5500868; Gearbox 5500854; Body 198.043.5500026; Steering Box 5500891; Rear Axle 5500418).  The 26th of the 29 examples of the “Alloy” Gullwings, it was the only one originally finished in Black over Red leather and, given the provenance, it’s assumed the restoration will recreate that look.  The price may perhaps be explained by the car being the only unrestored example of its type and that uniqueness has real appeal in the little corner of collector community able to indulge in such projects.  Time will tell whether it was a sound financial investment but even the rich sometimes have emotional attachment to objects so it's not impossible it was purchased for the pleasure of ownership rather than a thing to be “flipped” for profit.  Despite the sale, owners of Alloy Gullwings seem not to have been tempted to test the market, no others since being offered.