Schraubtechnik

I had a job recently with one subject - Schraubtechnik. Dict and Linguee agree that this translates as "screwdriving technology". OK so here we have Technik again, which I have already whinged about. But, if you search for Schraubtechnik, you can even find a URL including the word. This particular web site shows very nicely what German engineers understand by this term and it is means tools to screw things together.

The manual tools to screw things together are:
Schraubenzieher - a screwdriver.
Schraubenschlüssel - a spanner or wrench.
For an English speaking engineer one tool is for a screw, the other for a nut (or the hexagonal head of a bolt): screwdriver and nut driver respectively.

This means that from the cloud of meaning associated with Schraubtechnik, only a fraction of its meaning has appeared in the "screwdriving technology" translation. Try asking a car mechanic to undo the wheel nuts on your car's wheels using a screwdriver and see what they say!

You can get in quite screwed up thinking about all this so I ended up using screwdrivers & nut drivers for my translation instead of "screwdriving technology".
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