Debbie Miller, age 7, of Huntsville, Alabama, for her question:

What exactly is sterling silver?

Silver is a lovely precious metal but it is not very hard and durable. If it is melted in a hot furnace with a little copper, the metals mix together and form an alloy metal. The alloy is just as lovely as pure silver but it is much harder. It wears better and lasts longer. People learned this ages ago when they first started making silver coins. The best silver coins made in England were alloys with less than one part of copper to nine parts of silver. But even better silver coins were made by a league of merchants who traded in Eastern Europe. The English speaking people called these rich silver coins Easterlings. Soon they dropped the first part of the word and called them sterlings.

When we say sterling silver, we mean the richest kind of silver alloy    one that has a lot of silver and only a little copper or other metal. Sterling silver tableware is supposed to be made of a solid silver alloy of this sort. Plated silverware is merely coated with a layer of silver. The forks and spoons may be made of solid brass or some other hard metal and covered over with silver.