Trade and logistics

Le connaissement is the one word on this list that an English reader cannot guess at, and the reason is that the two languages named the same document from opposite ends of the job it does. French built the word on connaître, to know, by way of connaissance, which in the older commercial language was a written acknowledgement: the carrier states that he knows he has these goods on board, and the paper that says so is le connaissement. Whoever holds it holds the cargo, which is the whole point of le connaissement prouve qui détient la marchandise. English named the same paper after the loading instead. A « bill of lading » is a list of what has been laded, from the verb « to lade », and that verb is otherwise dead: it survives in « laden », as in a fully laden lorry, and nowhere else in ordinary use. One language filed the document under knowing and the other under loading, so neither word can suggest the other, and this is the entry here that has to be learnt rather than worked out.