Corrosion and material damage

The twelfth entry is il ciclo di verniciatura, and an English reader who takes ciclo for « cycle » will start looking for something that repeats. Nothing here does. The primer, the intermediate coat and the topcoat go on once each, in that order, and the job is then finished. What ciclo names in Italian is a complete ordered sequence, and whether it ever comes round again is no part of the word. That is why un ciclo di conferenze is a series of lectures that will not be given twice, why il ciclo di studi is the course a student walks through once, and why il ciclo produttivo is the road a part travels from raw bar to crate. « Cycle » in English insists on the return to the starting point, so we have to reach for « system », « course », « series » or « process » in turn, choosing each time. The two words do meet in one place, il ciclo di lavaggio of a washing machine, and that single agreement is exactly what makes the rest easy to miss.