Warehousing and Order Picking

The twenty-ninth entry is la baia di carico, and it is worth stopping on the noun, because English has several words spelt « bay » and they are strangers to one another. The inlet of the sea came in through Old French and rests on Late Latin baia. The laurel of a « bay leaf » is a different word, from baca, a berry. The reddish-brown horse is a third, from badius. The barking of hounds, kept in « at bay », is a fourth. And the one that matters here is a fifth: the bay of a building, the space between two supports, from Old French baee, an opening, built on batare, to stand gaping. A loading bay is therefore a hole in a wall that stands open, and it has nothing whatever to do with water. Italian received only the sea one, la baia, so a reader who traces la baia di carico back through its own noun arrives at a coastline and at the wrong picture. The look-alike il baio is no help either: that is the horse, from badius, another stranger wearing the same shape.