Sheet metal work

The seventeenth entry is o rebite, which English calls « a rivet »: a short pin pushed through two sheets and hammered flat at the far end so that nothing can move again. The technical word is the easy half. The hard half is that English has carried it out of the workshop and left it in ordinary speech, where it says nothing about metal at all. « A riveting performance » is one nobody could look away from, and a review that calls a film « riveting » is praising it. Somebody who hears bad news is « riveted to the spot », unable to take a step; a good speaker « rivets the attention » of a room. The picture underneath is still the fastener — something held so firmly that it cannot shift — but nobody using the word is thinking of a joint. Portuguese keeps o rebite and rebitar inside the trade and reaches for fascinante or pregado ao chão for the rest. So a catalogue that describes a riveting machine as « riveting » has made a joke it did not intend.