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Re:Black Phosphorous – the birth of a new wonder material by ableal on Monday January 12, 2015 @03:08PM (#8876117)
Bullseye hit on a pet peeve of many years: the confusion between phosphorus (a noun) and phosphorous (an adjective).
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Re:Black Phosphorous – the birth of a new wonder material by ars on Monday January 12, 2015 @03:18PM (#8876171)
You mean the difference between the element and the quality of glowing?

The adjective is falling out of usage, so you can assume references are to the first unless you are sure otherwise.

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Re:Black Phosphorous – the birth of a new wonder material by ableal on Monday January 12, 2015 @03:34PM (#8876252)
The chemical compounds, for instance, are phosphorous this or that.

(If you speak a romance language, it jumps out at you because the adjective has an extra syllable - e.g. 'fosforo' vs. 'fosforoso'.)

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Re:Black Phosphorous – the birth of a new wonder material by waqf on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @10:47AM (#8880513)
That's true of phosphorous acid (where the name distinguishes it from phosphoric acid), but otherwise English chemical names use the noun form of the positive ion (e.g. phosphorus pentoxide).
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Re:Black Phosphorous – the birth of a new wonder material by RobertKerans on Monday January 12, 2015 @07:55PM (#8877511)
> You mean the difference between the element and the quality of glowing?

Or just something containing/made partly of phosphorus (compounds of phosphorus being the most obvious examples, as @ars says): that's common (though glowing with a phosphorous light does have a lovely cadence)

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Re:Black Phosphorous – the birth of a new wonder material by digikata on Monday January 12, 2015 @06:04PM (#8877050)
Yes, I think the adjective in it's more modern form usually occurs as 'phosphorescent'.
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Re:Black Phosphorous – the birth of a new wonder material by ChuckMcM on Monday January 12, 2015 @03:24PM (#8876199)
But it could be phosphorus black phosphorus ?
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Re:Black Phosphorous – the birth of a new wonder material by dvanduzer on Monday January 12, 2015 @07:27PM (#8877407)
I don't know anyone who uses that stuff, except maybe Hotblack Desiato.
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Re:Black Phosphorous – the birth of a new wonder material by waqf on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @10:48AM (#8880521)
Oh, God, yes: the only similar example that I see abused as much is callus vs callous.
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Re:Black Phosphorous – the birth of a new wonder material by _random_ on Monday January 12, 2015 @05:03PM (#8876724)
"...heralding a new era of nanoelectronic devices..."

Did I just miss the previous nano-electronic era?! Where can I get my artificial nano-robotic ever-rejuvenating immune system injection?

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Re:Black Phosphorous – the birth of a new wonder material by digikata on Monday January 12, 2015 @05:26PM (#8876834)
The output of the previous nano-electronic era might be considered the MEMs accelerometers and rate sensors packed into most smartphones, DLP micro mirrors, etc....
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Re:Black Phosphorous – the birth of a new wonder material by InclinedPlane on Monday January 12, 2015 @05:28PM (#8876848)
That would be now. The average person owns devices containing billions of components that are tens of nanometers in scale of smaller.
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Re:Black Phosphorous – the birth of a new wonder material by wyager on Monday January 12, 2015 @06:00PM (#8877023)
>Did I just miss the previous nano-electronic era?!

You probably made that post using electronic components less than 30nm wide.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Black Phosphorous – the birth of a new wonder material by lsaferite on Monday January 12, 2015 @05:05PM (#8876737)
I would assume they mean on era containing nano-electronic devices where the previous era did not contain nano-electronic devices.
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