Plant protection

El nivel de daño económico depende del precio del producto: the economic damage threshold depends on the price of the crop. Damage — and English then wants two other words for the same Spanish noun, depending on what was hurt. « Damage » is done to things: a crop, a roof, a machine. « Harm » is done to people and to abstract goods — harm to health, harm to a reputation — and nobody says damage to health. « Injury » is the bodily one and, in law, the wrong itself. Spanish uses el daño for all three and lets the object decide: el daño a la cosecha, el daño a la salud, hacer daño. And the plural has a job of its own that no singular translation will reach: daños y perjuicios is « damages », the money a court awards, which in English is a plural that has stopped counting anything.