opening

The verb to open refers to making something stop being closed or covered, reveal what is hidden or uncover something. The notion of opening is linked to this action, although it can also mention other things.

A fissure, a cracking, a crack or a orifice They can also be referred to as openings: "We will have to make an opening in the wall to pass the pipes", "The explosion left a huge opening in the ceiling", Please get some cement so we can cover the opening..

In the phonetics, the opening is linked to how the organs in charge of phonation open and expand when allowing the air. Depending on the sound to be emitted, the aperture will be larger or smaller.

Those sounds that allow them to be pronounced without the intervention of the speaking organs, they are made with a much larger opening; In the case of our language, it happens with the vowels, where the sound of A is made with an opening greater than that of the rest of the vowels, opposite to that of I.

This term is opposed to that of closure, which refers to the contraction of the speaking organs to allow air to pass through and produce a specific sound.

Opening or opening?

This term gives rise to many confusions by looking a lot like another: "openness." Next we will try to establish the differences between the two, in order to know in the future when to use each one because, despite what many say, these two concepts are not interchangeable.

If we are guided by the definitions that both words receive in the RAE dictionary, we can say that although both refer to the action of opening something, there are certain differences. The openness is more advisable to speak of that action itself, to refer to an attitude of tolerance faced with a specific situation (openness to sexual diversity), the action of starting a business (opening of premises) and also to talk about the moment in which, through a specific mechanism, a gap is opened (opening diaphragm).

Apertura, on the other hand, is more indicated to refer to a cleft or hollow that has already occurred and it is permanent, like a wide space in the middle of two mountains (opening between mountain ranges) or a hole through which the light or the air (opening of a window).

On Photography There is diaphragm aperture, which many indiscriminately call opening (considering that the concept comes from shutter). However, the correct one is opening because we are talking about a hole that can be opened mechanically but is not always in that state. To better understand this we can clarify that in the case of a telescope, the hole through which it is observed is always open, which is why it is called an opening. Unfortunately and despite this clear difference in the meanings of the terms, it is necessary to point out that in the world of photography the wrong term is used more frequently.

Given the great contradictions generated by these terms, it is normal to find, even in important dictionaries, that for the optics, the aperture is the diameter of a lens, which establishes what the angle of a beam of light will be when it is focused on the image plane, despite the fact that in this case we are also talking about aperture.

Finally, this term should also be differentiated from that of overture, which refers to a piece of music that serves as an introduction to a lyrical composition, be it an opera, an oratorio or any other composition of this style.