If English followed stricter rules "stainless" would mean "without stain", and to convey "unable to be stained" we would always use "unstainable" instead, a real but rarely used word.

> If English followed stricter rules "stainless" would mean "without stain"

It does mean that (and/or "unable to be stained").

Sure but I meant without such ambiguity (unable to be stained VS not stained as of now)

Since we are on a tangent anyway I've just realised that the current British PM just this week appeared to be using the non-standard definition when talking with a "homeless" man at a soup kitchen over Xmas. I think I'm this case the PM was corrected fairly quickly but the assumption that homeless means having fewer homes explains a lot of government policy

No it's worse, he asked the dude if he's in business hahaha

Imagine if the prime minister was LARPing a role in the service industry asked you that when you're living in a cardboard box

If you read the whole conversation it's not as bad as it sounds

I dunno, I've heard/read it and it is pretty bad - "What are you doing this weekend?" is about as tone-deaf as you can get towards a homeless person.

I have to agree with you on that point but I still think that the PM needs a lot more time at that soup kitchen before he starts understanding the problems it's actually his job to fix.

> Well, linguistically speaking, adding the suffix "-less" to a word implies "without", in English.

It's also frequently an exaggeration and I doubt most people who heard "I'm penniless" or "It's endless" would think "they have zero money" or "this will continue until I die (and beyond)".

Useful. But back to the subject is this hydrogen thing related to the strange property like ice float unlike nearly all other solid state of matter.