Tools and repairs

The last word here is la guarnizione, and a cook will read it wrong. In a kitchen it is the garnish, what goes on the plate at the end — la guarnizione del piatto. In a bathroom it is the rubber ring inside a tap, the seal that keeps the water in the pipe, and that is the sense here: la guarnizione costa due euro. English has the first half of that range and not the second. « Garnish » only ever cooks; the plumbing part must be a « washer », a « gasket » or a « seal », three words with nothing in common. The link reappears once the older meaning is restored. Old French garnir, from a Frankish verb for taking care, meant to equip, to fit out, to supply what a thing needs — and a tap without its ring is not fitted out. English borrowed that verb repeatedly and kept a different job each time: « garnish » for the plate, « garrison » for troops fitted out in a town, « garment » for a person fitted out in clothes. Italian kept one noun and lets the trade decide what is fitted.