On Wed, 6 Mar 2019 at 19:28, Sergio Manzi <[email protected]> wrote: > I agree with Volker and I also woul like to underline how in Italian we > use the sister word "laboratorio" (*both com from the Latin "labor, > "work"*) for some craftmanship activity: we call a "laboratorio" also the > places where a goldsmith or an orthodontic mechanic performs their craft, > and the same for many others. I'm unsure if there is a similar usage in > English too, but just in case... > Unsurprisingly, the English "Laboratory" also derives from the Latin. The Latin, as you stated, means a place where one labours or works. Somehow, in English, it appears only to ever have meant a place where one conducts scientific research and experimentation. I have no idea why this is so, none of the dictionaries (on-line and hardcopy) I looked at explain why, and none state that it ever meant any more generalized workplace.
In English, though, it would generally be used for small-scale work. It might be a very large laboratory complex, but the amounts of material involved in any particular experiment are usually small. Of course, there are always exceptions, but it's not producing items or materials for general sale. -- Paul
_______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list [email protected] https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
