Hydropower

La grille de dégrillage is the trash rack at the intake, and the noun doing the work inside it is one of the busiest in French. A grille is anything built of parallel bars: the gate at the end of a drive, la grille du jardin; the grating over a gutter; and the rack on this list that stops branches reaching the turbine. From there it travels where English cannot follow with one word. La grille des programmes is a broadcaster’s schedule, la grille des salaires is a pay scale, une grille de mots croisés is a crossword, and, best of all, une grille de lecture is a framework for interpreting something: changer de grille de lecture is to look at the same facts another way. English needs gate, grating, rack, schedule, scale and framework for that, and its own « grille » names only the one on a car. What holds them together is visible at the intake: bars that let some things through and keep others back, which is exactly what a pay scale does to a salary. One last turn — le dégrillage takes away not the rack but what the rack caught.