Intensive care medicine

The second entry is sevrer, and the two languages name the same daily act of the unit from opposite ends. Sevrer continues the Latin separare, to set apart, worn down by ordinary mouths until two syllables were left; the learned form of that very verb entered French a second time, untouched, as séparer, so the ward has both — one for the ventilator and one for everything else. English took the worn form from old French and kept it for ties and for contracts: « to sever » a link, « severance » on leaving a post. What English never did was carry it to the bedside. The word there is « to wean », and it is Germanic: Old English wenian meant to accustom, to train somebody to something, which is why German still has entwöhnen. So the French image is subtraction, a support taken away by degrees, and the English image is instruction, a body taught to manage without. Both stand behind « weaning from the ventilator », and neither could be reached by translating the other.