Running a library

The first verb in this list is one a learner already half knows, and that is the trouble with it. Verstellen is what you do to a car seat or a thermostat, which is to adjust it. A lorry parked across a gateway verstellt die Einfahrt and blocks it; somebody who verstellt die Stimme disguises their voice, and sich verstellen is to put on an act. In a library the word means none of these. A book that has been verstellt has been put back on the wrong shelf, and among long rows of open shelves that makes it as good as lost: the catalogue still says it is there, and nobody will find it until somebody checks the shelves by hand. What joins the four senses is the idea of moving something out of its usual position — a seat, an obstacle, a voice, a book — and only the context says whether the move was meant.