Raising a glass to Stookey

In my column in Vol. 2/4, I commented on the Russian term metallove-denie as meaning 'looking at metals'. An Israeli materials scientist of Byelomssian origin, Eugene Rahkin, kindly wrote in to correct me. "Metalloveidenie, if it existed, would have that meaning, but with an 'e' instead of an 'i'', the word means 'knowing about metals thoroughly', from an old Russian verb, vedat', which means to know thoroughly (as in the German word 'Kunde'). Vedat is extinct in Russian, but not in Rabkin's Bydorussian. My error reveals the perils of amateur etymology.