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EveryLingua

C2  ·  41 words

Books and libraries

Manuscripts, bindings, editions and shelves — the book as an object and as part of a collection.

One verb in this list does four jobs, and a learner meets most of them long before setting foot in a library. Erschließen is first of all what a council does to open land before anyone may build on it: ein Baugebiet erschließen means laying the roads, pipes and cables that make a plot usable. A firm erschließt einen Markt when it opens one up, and a reader erschließt the meaning of a word from its context, which is inferring rather than opening anything. In a library the verb takes a collection as its object, and einen Bestand erschließen means cataloguing and indexing it so that it can be found at all. The picture behind all four is the same — making something usable that was already there — but English needs four different verbs, and picking the wrong one makes a cataloguer sound like a surveyor.

The words

Verb (7)

rubrizierento rubricate; to file under a headingVerbC2
Der Schreiber ließ Platz, damit ein anderer die Überschriften später rubrizieren konnte.The scribe left space so that someone else could rubricate the headings later.

Outside the history of the book, mostly figurative: to classify.

foliierento foliate (number the leaves)VerbC2
Die Handschrift wurde erst im neunzehnten Jahrhundert foliiert, mit Bleistift in der oberen Ecke.The manuscript was not foliated until the nineteenth century, in pencil in the top corner.

Numbers leaves, so front and back share one number: 12r, 12v.

paginierento paginate (number the pages)VerbC2
Der Setzer paginiert erst, wenn der Umbruch steht.The typesetter only paginates once the page make-up is fixed.
entleihento borrow (formal, from a library)VerbC2
Entliehene Medien sind spätestens nach vier Wochen zurückzugeben.Borrowed items must be returned within four weeks at the latest.

Irregular and inseparable: entlieh, entliehen.

vormerkento reserve (a book that is out on loan)VerbC1
Das Buch ist ausgeliehen, aber Sie können es vormerken lassen.The book is out on loan, but you can have it reserved.

Separable: ich merke es vor.

erschließento catalogue and index (a collection)VerbC2
Der Nachlass ist bis heute nur zur Hälfte erschlossen.To this day only half of the papers have been catalogued.

Irregular: erschloss, erschlossen. Also to develop land and to infer.

makulierento pulp (unsold copies)VerbC2
Die Restauflage wurde makuliert, bevor jemand an ein Antiquariat dachte.The remaining stock was pulped before anyone thought of an antiquarian bookseller.

This list belongs to Science and research — 18 lists and 653 words that can also be practised as a whole.

Practise this list

Multiple choice and gaps, drawn from exactly these 41 words. Whatever you get wrong comes back tomorrow.