Do-it-yourself and repairs

The list for the Saturday somebody fixes something. Two of its entries are the same French noun, and English uses a different word for each. Le ruban is a long narrow strip of anything: le ruban adhésif is sticky tape and le mètre ruban is a tape measure. English keeps « ribbon » for the decorative strip — in a hat, round a parcel, on a medal — and reaches for « tape » the moment the strip has a job to do. Neither « adhesive ribbon » nor « ribbon measure » is sayable. The French word is the older one on both sides: English borrowed « ribbon » from it, and « tape » is a native word that then took over the practical half. So a shopping list that says du ruban needs the context to be readable, and the two words on this page supply it.