Piecing

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

Scientists are slowly piecing together the mechanism of aging.

The anthropologist is piecing together pottery shards she unearthed at the excavation site.

Investigators started piecing together the grisly story.

In Japanese, conjugation is fundamental to piecing words together with auxiliaries. For example, to express the polite past, we must first take the "ren'yōkei", or "continuative", conjugation of a given verb and attach it to the auxiliary ます (masu). When we do this with a verb such as のむ (nomu), it becomes のみます (nomimasu), at first. This is the polite form, as ます forms the polite. To properly express the polite past in full, we must add the auxiliary た. The stem of ます (masu) is a simple "mas-" sound. Since it ends with an S sound, a change occurs when we attempt to add た. The resulting "masta" is difficult to pronounce and not easy to write in Japanese, as it neglects the common consonant-vowel spelling rule. So, a compromise is made, also known as an 音便 (onbin), or, literally, a "sound convenience". The "masta" takes on an I sound between the stem's end and the auxiliary's beginning. Since there is no "si" in Japanese, "shi" is used instead. The resulting conjugation is のみました (nomimashita). When pronounced, it may be contracted and read as "nomimash'ta".

He started piecing together the whole story.

When you're laying out the pattern, try to arrange it so piecings and repairs fall in a part of the garment where they won't show — in hems, facings, underarm in waist or sleeves.