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Originally Posted by Philip
Thank you for the interesting linguistic and technical information. A couple of comments:
The black color of the wutong / shakudo alloy is induced by a chemical process commonly called "pickling", the reaction causes a color change at the surface. Etching is the use of an acid to eat away (the English term "etch" is related from a Dutch word meaning "to eat") of the metal to create a pattern (contrived by the use of a resist like wax or shellac to block the corrosive effect in certain areas), or to dull a glossy surface, or to bring out the texture of the object by reacting with different constituent alloys (for instance, in revealing the structure of a damascus blade).
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Thank you Philip! These are the subtleties of another language that you have to learn all your life. I have already added the term "picking" to my personal English-Russian glossary. It is curious that in Russian there is a very rare term "пикель" - "pikel", which comes from the English "pickle" and means the acid-salt solution used to treat hides before tanning.