Re: <Audi> Installing STEADIRIC suspension

[Brendan <bman@swva.net>]

At 10:13 AM 9/24/97 GMT, you wrote:
>In message <199709240547.WAA07850@gonzo.wolfenet.com> Orin Eman writes:
>
>> > 1. "Remove axle/bolt washer".  Can you re-use that bolt?  Bentley
>> > contradicts itself.
>> 
>> You should replace it.  It's self-locking.
>
>"Replace" is ambiguous.  "Renew" is better.
>
>The microfiche, not Bentley, is at fault.  The original German uses a
mixture 
>of 'ersetzen' and 'erneuern'.  If the translator was not a mechanic (a
highly 
>likely situation) he/she might have attempted to preserve this distinction.  
>'Ersetzen' translates as the 'renew' meaning of replace - but in English 
>'replace' is ambiguous and might just mean 'put it back in'. 
>
>I'd like us to adopt 'renew' (erneuern) in our discussions - it's
unambiguous.
>
>--
> Phil Payne
> Committee Member, UK Audi [ur-]quattro Owners Club

I think this depends on where you live in part.  To me, and to most people
I know, 'renew' implies restoring 'newness' to something and re-using it,
whereas 'replace' means to discard the existing part in favor of a new one,
or one in better condition.  I can certainly understand your usage, and I
don't mean to suggest in any way that anybody's usage is more or less
correct than another's, but we all know that the same word can mean
different things from region to region, or from country to country.  I'm
reminded of a day in high school (in the US) when a student visiting from
England asked a classmate if he could borrow his 'rubber,' which caused
quite an episode, and nothing further was accomplished by the teacher that
day.  It was a simple misunderstanding, with no one at fault, but a perfect
example of how word usage can differ from one place to another.  And this
is, after all, an international list.  Where you see more ambiguity with
replace, I see more with renew.  Perhaps an alternative would be to specify
'discarding' parts that should not be re-used?

B