In my country, we sometimes call working arrangements where one company “leases” individual employees to another “body leasing”. “Body” and “to lease” are obviously English words of good standing, but is the term itself used outside of Germany? When I google it, I get mostly German results (and the English ones might be from Germans … Read more
Wiktionary describes one of them coming from Latin, and the other from proto-Germanic. Does this mean they’re unrelated, even though they’re homonyms and both about geometric properties (narrowness and not bending)? Answer Wiktionary, despite its lack of reliability and comprehensiveness, is in the right direction. Etymonline (which uses OED) has a more detailed explanation: strait … Read more
Many of my colleagues use the word realize in the sense of implement (as in “software realization” or “I didn’t realize this function”) It looks like these are false friends in both French and German. However, the use is so widespread that I’m having doubts whether it’s legitimate. A few examples: CAN Specification, page 1: … Read more
Italians often get confused by sensible and sensitive. If I tell them He’s a sensible boy; he studies hard, saves his money, and plans ahead. They are quite bewildered. To them, sensible is indistinguishable from the Italian “sensibile” which means impressionable, easily moved to tears and sentimental. È un ragazzo sensibile = He’s a sensitive … Read more
