Robotics and automation

The fourth entry is l’organo terminale, the end effector, and the first word is the one that goes wrong. « Organ » in English lives in two places only: inside a body, and at the end of a church. Italian keeps both of those — l’organo del corpo, l’organo a canne — and then sends the same word into the workshop, where it names a working part of a machine. Gli organi di trasmissione are the drive components, l’organo di comando is the operating control, l’organo di presa is the gripping member, and l’organo terminale is whatever the arm carries at its far end. What runs through all of them is the idea under the Greek organon, a tool: a part that does a job inside a larger whole. English simply refused to carry the word past anatomy and music, and reaches instead for « member », « element », « device » or « unit », choosing by what the drawing shows. Two consequences follow. A parts list headed organi names components and nothing else. And l’organo di sicurezza is a safety device, which is worth knowing before anybody turns it into a body part.