sorry, my technical error about metals.
I guess I was referring to metals in a more 'everyday sense' being 'brittle', seeing as even the iron we use in nails, magnets, etc are slightly alloyed.
The presence of a small proportion of one or more additional elements in a metal can alter some of its properties significantly. In general, alloys are harder than pure metals. This is because the different sized atoms of other atoms interrupt the orderly arrangement of atoms in the metal lattice and prevent them from sliding over each other as easily. Hence 'carbon steel' (or the abovementioned 'pig iron') has up to 3-4% iron and not more than 1.7% manganese and 0.6% silicon. I guess it was just a 'trial and error' thing for early chemists to obtain the optimum proportion of each substance in order to produce an alloy with the properties most befitting to purpose.
My earlier question was not a question of whether metals are brittle, but whether the hardness of a metal is the
same as its 'brittleness'. On that note, I think I have worked out the answer. Since different sized atoms in alloys interrupt the orderly arrangement of atoms in the lattice and hence they cannot slide easily past each other, they must in turn be more brittle since it is less likely they are able to be stretched or bent without breaking on impact.
Any takers?