Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by beAbU 940 days ago
Maybe it's my non-native English letting me down here, but what other, non-noun, non-chemical element Phosphorous is there?
2 comments

The title of the post (on Hackernews, above) has the spelling "Phosphorous" (with a U). This is the spelling of the Adjective (a describing word). It is a mistake in this context, because what has been discovered in the outskirts of the Milky Way is not a grammatical construct but rather a chemical element.

The chemical element is spelled without the U (even in British English!): Phosphorus.

https://grammarist.com/spelling/phosphorous-phosphorus/

> The title of the post (on Hackernews, above) has the spelling "Phosphorous" (with a U).

The noun also has that U, it's the O next to it that it doesn't have.

Well I feel pretty silly now. Thanks for pointing out the error
Well, at least I now know the word phosphorous exists.
I am now replacing “cromulent” with “phosphorous”. As in “that is a perfectly phosphorous statement”.
I did not know this. Thanks for the little lesson in grammar!
The title is a typo. "Phosphorous" is an adjective. The correct noun is "phosphorus." The linked article uses it correctly, so only OP screwed up here.
Yet the article url's slug uses the adjective, but it's grammatically correct! "2023-11-phosphorous-outskirts-milky.html"

And still yet, the article's diagram's caption does not use the correct word!! "Currently known Galactic distribution of phosphorous."