Glassmaking

The last entry on this list is one of the oldest things a glassblower made for the chemist: die Retorte, a round flask whose long neck bends sideways and down, so that whatever boils inside condenses on its way out. The vessel has mostly left the laboratory, but German kept it in an idiom that English never built. Something aus der Retorte is artificial, made to a plan rather than grown: eine Stadt aus der Retorte is a new town drawn on paper and put up in one go, eine Band aus der Retorte a group assembled by casting, and die Retortenstadt says the same in a single compound. The phrase is seldom a compliment; it often carries the suspicion that something has no roots and no history of its own. English reaches for other pictures here, purpose-built, manufactured, synthetic, and none of them has any glass in it.