Mining: underground and afterwards

Most learners meet vor Ort long before they meet a mine: die Polizei war schnell vor Ort, unser Team vor Ort, the reporter standing outside the building. It means on the spot, on site, where the thing is actually happening — and it is a miners’ phrase. Der Ort once meant a point or an end, and underground it kept that sense: the far end of a heading, the place where the rock is being cut. A miner working vor Ort was at the face, not in the shaft and not on the way there. Everyday German has kept the phrase and dropped the rock. The rest of this list stays underground for a while — unter Tage, das Flöz, der Streb — and then comes up to what mining leaves behind: die Bergsenkung, das Grubenwasser and die Ewigkeitslasten, the bills that never stop arriving.