The work reference

The second entry is il certificato in corso di rapporto, and the last word is the one to hold on to, because it does three jobs that English hands to three unrelated words. The first is the legal one, which is what it means here: il rapporto di lavoro is the employment relationship, the bond between the two parties, so that in corso di rapporto means simply while that bond is still running, and la cessazione del rapporto is its end. The second is the written one: fare rapporto is to report to a superior and il rapporto annuale is the annual report. The third is arithmetical: il rapporto di uno a tre is a ratio, and in rapporto a means in relation to. English owns the word too, but it arrived through French and came out narrowed to almost nothing. « Rapport » is a warm understanding between two people — building « rapport » with a witness, a patient, a class — and it can be nothing else. A reader who carries that single sense into an Italian personnel file will find a friendship ending where a job ended.