Machining and manufacturing

Near the end of this page stands rebarbar, and it is worth a minute, because English builds that idea in a way Portuguese does not. A rebarba is the burr, the ragged lip a cut leaves behind, and rebarbar is the job of taking it off. Read with English habits the verb points the wrong way, since a bare noun turned into a verb normally puts the thing on rather than takes it away: « to butter » bread, « to varnish » a door, « to oil » a bearing. English marks removal with a prefix instead, and the prefix is « de- ». So the workshop verb is « to deburr », and beside it stand « to degrease » a casting, « to descale » a boiler, « to de-ice » a wing and « to debone » a fish. The pattern is live: an engineer who needs a new one bolts « de- » onto the noun and is understood at once. Two cautions. The name of the operation is the gerund, so a routing sheet says « deburring, by hand » and never « deburr ». And « to burr » does exist alone, and means to raise a burr — which is the very sentence a Portuguese reader is most likely to write.