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BTW, I ocassionally come across Spanish-language articles, which I can more or less decipher with my minimal Latin (and emerging French) knowledge. But I always wondered about the easy Spanish name of TBMs - tuneladora[sp?] -, how was that word formed and what does it mean literally?

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Mon Dec 12th, 2005 at 09:21:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Tuneladora is a neologism, I believe.

Túnel is a tunnel, obviously.

Tunelar is "to drill tunnels". I am not sure it was standard Spanish (now, post Ruiz-Gallardon, it is!).

Tuneladora is "she who drills tunnels". This is because máquina is of the feminine grammatical gender in Spanish.

By analogy, a drill is taladro or taladradora (a drill bit is not taladro but broca, don't ask me why). Taladrar means to bore a hole. So, TBM does translate as taladradora, but those are hand-held so I suppose it's good they came up with a new term.

Another word for "boring holes" is trepanar, and trépano is the instrument used.

"Hole boring" can also be translated as aburrir a los agujeros, but that's just a snark.

guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Dec 12th, 2005 at 09:31:42 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Broca may perhaps relate to "broach" a five sided tapered reamer once used in metal working (now in clockmaking)
by dmun on Thu Dec 15th, 2005 at 11:20:09 AM EST
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