Saturday, November 23, 2013

bar(ü)

German: bar(ü)

Turns out there are two ways to measure pressure: absolute, or gauge. The gauge pressure is the pressure above atmospheric pressure, after all. Or the Überdruck. Sometimes this is translated barg (in contrast to bara, absolute bar), or sometimes converted to psig, but in all honestly neither of these is strictly correct even though they're in common usage. Instead, you should write out bar (gauge), according to the UK National Physical Laboratory.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Kantel

German: Kantel

Wooden tilt-and-turn windows use semi-finished wooden boards called scantlings, apparently.

Falze

German: Falze (as in Glasfalze)

I have a TM from a customer that lists "fold". Unfortunately, this is wrong: it's a glass rebate, the little slot in a sash bar that holds the glass on one side. (Or more than one, but with classical windows the mullions just abut the glazing, they don't hold it in place.)

Sturz

German: Sturz (as in Türsturz)

This one took some looking; normally you don't see it without Tür- in front of it. It's a lintel.

Monday, August 5, 2013

Boldog Asszony hava

Hungarian: Boldog Asszony hava

Wow. Hungarian has alternate traditional names for the months...

January: Boldog Asszony hava - Month of the Happy Wife
February: Böjtelő hava - Pre-Lenten Month, I think
March: Böjtmás hava - uh, Post-Lenten Month?
April: Szent György hava - Month of St. George
May: Pünkösd hava - Month of Pentecost, or, whimsically, "Whitmonth". (No, that's not a real word.)
June: Szent Iván hava - Month of St. Ivan
July: Szent Jakab hava - Month of St. Jacob
August: Kis Asszony hava - Month of the Maiden
September: Szent Mihály hava - Month of St. Michael
October: Mindszent hava - All Saint's Month
November: Szent András hava - Month of St. Andreas
December: Karácsony hava - Christmas Month 

(From a genealogical glossary.)

This sort of thing rocks my world. Hungarian culture goes down and down and down.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

consignations

French: consignations

Everything in French is always so vague. Sure, "consignation" means "consignment" - but in a technical management context, consignations means log.

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Zeichnungsteile

German: Zeichnungsteil

Custom parts. Called this not because they're part of a drawing, but rather that a drawing must be included in the order to specify them because they're parts that aren't in a catalog.

Monday, June 3, 2013

Sole

German: Sole

This one gets me every time.  It's brine - what kind of etymology could it possibly have?  Solebehälter, brine tank.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Schallhärte

German: Schallhärte

Acoustic impedance.  Another one of those words that's obvious, but only in retrospect.

Saturday, April 27, 2013

We

Hungarian: We (blood test)

Sometimes the abbreviations don't make sense.  Given Hungarian blood tests results, I had "We" - measured in mm/h.  So ... obviously the sed rate, right?  You'd think.  But what does "We" stand for?  The actual translation of sedimentation rate for blood is vörösvértest süllyedés.  No "W" at all - and in fact, "W" is not a letter normally used in Hungarian in the first place.

So as it turns out, We is the abbreviation used for sed rate, as confirmed by this helpful page of lab test abbreviations in Hungarian, but I still don't know its etymology.

Monday, April 22, 2013

LS-Schalter

German: LS-Schalter

Short for Leistungsschutzschalter, "power protection switch" or, in actual English, circuit breaker.  Which I know, and yet it's always so easy for the brain to bail and give you "LS switch" as a translation.  Stupid brain!

Thursday, April 18, 2013

éhomi

Hungarian: éhomi

As in éhomi vércukor; my wife and I have been collaborating on some medical translations lately.  The state of Hungarian online dictionaries is not so fantastic as I'm used to with German.  SZTAKI (the university) has a really good resource, but if a word isn't in there, you're on your own, and SZTAKI's dictionary is largely business- and technology-related.  Medical, not so much.

Turns out it's fasting, as in fasting blood sugar.  Duh.  Obvious after the fact.

Friday, March 22, 2013

Schubskid

German: Schubskid-Anlage

In English, this is called a skillet system.  There was just one Linguee hit and honestly I thought it had to be wrong.  Skillet system.  Who makes these words up?  (The automotive industry, turns out.)