Joinery and cabinetmaking

Joiners give their instructions in a compact pattern that is worth learning as grammar rather than as vocabulary: auf followed by a bare noun, with no article, naming the state a piece of wood is to be brought to. Die Leisten werden auf Gehrung geschnitten: the mouldings are cut to a mitre. In the same way a board is planed auf Dickte, to thickness, a mortise is chopped auf Maß, to size, and timber is sawn auf Länge, to length. The bare noun answers the question ‘to what?’ and describes a target, not a place. Put the article back and the preposition turns spatial again: Der Leim kommt auf die Gehrung means the glue goes onto the mitred faces themselves. English reaches for ‘to’ or ‘at’, or for a verb of its own, to mitre; German keeps the one preposition throughout. The rest of the list is about wood that moves, and about the joints and gaps that let it.