Hydrology

El perímetro de protección limita el uso alrededor del pozo: the protection zone limits what may be done around the well. El pozo is the single Spanish noun for any hole sunk on purpose into the ground, and English breaks it into a small shelf of words according to what comes out of it and how it was made. Water lifted by bucket or pump comes from a « well », and so does oil. A mine's vertical hole is a « shaft ». A narrow hole drilled to measure something is a « borehole », which is what a hydrologist usually has in front of him. Waste goes into a « cesspit », and the low corner a pump stands in is a « sump ». Spanish adds a word to pozo for each of them — pozo de sondeo, pozo de mina, pozo negro — where English changes the noun outright. The trap in the other direction is smaller and sharper: « well » is also one of the commonest adverbs in the language, so a report reading « the well is working well » is not a slip of the finger.