It is well known that Hooke's law for a linearly elastic, isotropic solid may be written in the form of two relations that involve only the spherical or only the deviatoric parts of the tensors of stress and strain. The example of the linearly elastic, transversely isotropic solid is used to show that this decomposition is not, in general, feasible for linearly elastic, anisotropic solids. The discussion is extended to a large class of work-hardening rigid, plastic solids, and it is shown that the considered decomposition can only be achieved for the incompressible solids of this class.