Seismology

The twenty-sixth entry is l’adeguamento sismico, and the noun that carries it is the quiet false friend of this page, because English has a word that looks like it and damns with faint praise. « Adequate » in English means barely enough: a piece of work called « adequate » has passed and pleased nobody, and an « adequate » supply is one that will only just hold. The Italian adjective adeguato carries none of that grudging tone. It means matched to what the case requires — una risposta adeguata is the right answer and not a thin one, and un compenso adeguato is proper pay. From the adjective comes the noun, and l’adeguamento is the act of bringing something up to the level now demanded: l’adeguamento degli stipendi, l’adeguamento alla normativa, and on this page l’adeguamento sismico of a school, which English calls seismic retrofitting. So a reader who hears « adequate » under the word will take a full structural upgrade for a minimum scraped through. It is the other way round: the building is being lifted to meet a demand, not merely allowed to sit below it.