Wow! Had I known this would be my most popular discussion of the year, I would’ve proofread it!

Su.Ki.: Thanks for the awesome limerick! Actually, students rarely confuse the spelling of “steel” and “steal” — the real problem is that they go crazy trying to hear the difference! Note to learners: “Steel” and “steal” are pronounced exactly the same in English (and have been for hundreds of years). “Still” is pronounced differently, although there are some (non-standard) regional accents where they’ve merged.

By the way, Su, nice unfinished limerick trick! Which reminds me:

There once was a man from Nantucket,

His reputation was so highly exaggerated you wouldn't believe it.

Som: “Spoonerisms” — good one!

Ali: Thanks. Actually, that’s the full expression in English too: “To be born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth.”

Natalie writes:

<em>@Su.Ki.</em>

<em>To spoon-feed (someone)</em>

<em>It was used in the very first comment here by Karl. I believe you two made me memorize it by employing phycholinguistic guessing, timely repetition and providing good examples)</em>

Good to know this thread has at least a little educational value for ESL learners!

Will continue commenting on comments when I can.

In support of Dan's comment about the old-fashioned verb "to spoon"

from 3 dictionaries:

Now that the answer has been disclosed--and now I've looked in Wikipedia to refresh my memory and find that stainless steel alloys fall in three broad categories, "austenitic," "ferritic," and "martensitic," and the first is the most common and "usually" non-magnetic, while the others are "usually" magnetic--I can tell a story.

I was in a university machine shop where they built things for scientists (and polite grad students).There happened to be a big stainless steel tray in the room. And there also happened to be a big magnet. This was before the days when rare-earth magnets were common, but you did get some very strong alnico magnets. This one was about the size of a coffee can, and if it got stuck to something it was <em>very</em> hard to detach it. Might have had a "lifting power" of more than fifty pounds.

So someone says "Did you know that stainless steel isn't magnetic?" And someone, goofing around, said "Really?" Picks up the big magnet, brings it to the tray to test, and when it's about an inch away the tray flies up, sticks to the magnet, and makes a loud, dull "GONGGGGGG" sound that startles everyone in the room. And it then took several people pulling hard to detach the magnet from the stainless steel tray.

I <em>think</em> I know the answer. I think that there are many <em>different</em> alloys known by the name "stainless steel" and that... ("select all" or "ctrl-A" to see answer)

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

If you have a stainless steel stein and Gertrude Stein steals your steel stein, then you are steinless.

Stainless "steel".

Yes, I know the answer. Thank you Walter Lewin from MIT and your wonderful online lectures. I'm a physics nerd you see, and I love it when universities put their lectures online to spoon-feed old dudes like me!