Chad in China and Hungary

[Douglas G. Wilson]

Thanks to Frank Abate for the tip on the UK patent site.

Only the English-language title is listed for Chinese patent # CN2032249U
(1989): "ANCHOR FILLED WITH CERAMIC GRAVEL SAND HAYDITE AND CHAD".

It seems likely that "chad" more or less = "gravel" here, rather than
"paper residue". What is happening here? What was the Chinese word
translated as "chad"? Maybe it was "chad" itself (loan-word transcribed as
a phonetic like "cha-du") -- or "chat" or "chert" or ...? Or does somebody
think "chad" is a good English translation of some Chinese word denoting a
certain type of gravel or aggregate? Does "chad" appear = "gravel" or so in
some Chinese/English dictionary? Or did somebody ask a Scots tourist or
visiting engineer "What do you call this stuff?" ...? [Haydite appears to
be a trade name for a shale aggregate, like gravel.]

Only the English-language title is listed for Hungarian patent #  HU171647
(1977): "MOVING TRACK TREATING MACHINE FOR PACKING CHAD UNDER SLEEPERS OF
TRACK". Here it is clear what is being translated, since equivalent patents
from other countries are available in text. The word being translated as
"chad" is the German word "Schotter" [perhaps a cognate of "chad"?] =
"gravel"/"ballast", translated "ballast" in the UK and US versions of the
patent, "pierraille" in the French version, and of course "barasuto" in the
Japanese one. I don't know whether "Schotter" was translated directly to
"chad" or whether it was translated through Hungarian. I am entirely
ignorant of Hungarian (and I don't have the Hungarian text anyway). Does
"chad" = "gravel" appear in some German/English or Hungarian/English
dictionary?

[BTW, one Hungarian translation of "Schotter" might be "sóder" = "gravel"
-- which is possibly a loan-word from German ("Schotter")? -- and I find
Hungarian "sóderol" = something like "gab" or "chatter" -- could this be a
loan-word too, perhaps from English ("chat"/"chatter")? Just a coincidence?
Any of the local scholars familiar with Hungarian?]

-- Doug Wilson