The law of the sea

The eighth entry is le passage inoffensif, and the adjective on it is the sort of trap that leaves the sentence standing. « Inoffensive » exists in English and is a matter of taste: an inoffensive remark is one nobody minds, an inoffensive beige offends no eye. It describes mildness. Inoffensif describes the incapacity to hurt — un serpent inoffensif cannot poison you, une plaisanterie inoffensive draws no blood. So the French term says that the ship crossing the belt of territorial sea threatens nothing: it does not fish, survey, launch anything or put a person ashore against the coastal State’s law. Giving offence is not in it anywhere. English arrives at the same idea by another road and says « innocent passage », and that is where the two languages meet, because « innocent » is in-nocens, not harming, built on nocere, to hurt. English kept the harmlessness in the older word and let the newer one drift into mildness. Write « inoffensive passage » and a lawyer will see the translation before the argument.