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Say, you buy some new office furniture. You get the furniture parts delivered including the service to put the different parts - for example the desk top and the desk legs - together to complete furniture ready for usage.

Is the person who carries out this service called "Assembler", "Installer" or "Fitter" and is his service called "Assembly", "Installation" or "Fitting"? Are the words interchangeable? Do they have different connotations? Are there other contexts where they are not interchangeable?

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  • Probably I would call it "assembly". Maybe "installation" if the new furniture is attached to the walls or floor (or ceiling). Maybe "fitting" if the size and shape of the furniture is changed on the spot to fit the location. Just some thoughts.
    – GEdgar
    Commented Jun 20, 2012 at 13:57

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In my central-US experience, the only terms among these that are used in this connection are installer, installation and assembly. People also sometimes refer to furniture installers as carpenters, accurately or not. (The installers are likely to be carpenters or cabinetmakers if the furniture requires any on-site modification or if it is built-in.)

Note: Most carpenters and cabinetmakers work primarily with wood; a few make extensive use of metal, plastic, and glass, and one might instead call them furnituremakers or craftsmen or (particularly in fine-furniture magazines) artisans. Anyone with a more-specialized title than installer is likely to be called by that title while installing things. People who deliver and assemble mass-produced metal furniture are likely to be called deliverymen or laborers, even if skilled.

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  • If the furniture have a modern style made of aluminium, steel and glass, would Carpenter and Cabinetmaker still be appropriate? I've just pasted in the two words into a dictionary for my native language (German) and I find translations that in German would only be used in the context of wood-working.
    – Tom
    Commented Jun 20, 2012 at 14:32
  • Tom, see note .
    – James Waldby - jwpat7
    Commented Jun 20, 2012 at 14:52
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If you told me you were having somebody in to assemble something, I would think you were having something put together from parts. Like a desk.

If you told me you were having somebody in to install something, I would think you were having something put in place. Like a garbage disposal or a computer application.

If you told me you were having somebody in to fit something, I would think you were buying clothes or repairing something with a particular custom part. Like fitting a replacement pipe in a drain.

I would call somebody who puts together IKEA desks for a living an assembler or assembly person.

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