Technology and the internet

The list for a screen rather than a shelf, and one of its verbs looks like an English word it has nothing to do with. Supprimer is to delete — supprime ce fichier removes a file, and la suppression is the deletion. English « to suppress » means to hold something down: a revolt, a cough, a feeling, a piece of evidence somebody would rather nobody saw. Nothing disappears; it is kept from coming out. The French verb has that sense too, but only where a thing stops existing — supprimer un poste abolishes a job, supprimer un train cancels a service. The English for the holding-down is réprimer or étouffer. So the commonest button on a screen shares its spelling with a word about censorship, and a sentence built on the resemblance reads as an accusation.