Demography

The fourth entry is l’effetto tempo, and the word in the middle is a loan that came home changed. English took tempo out of the Italian of music, where it marks how fast a piece is played, and kept nothing else: « tempo » in English is pace and only pace — the tempo of a match, the tempo of a negotiation. So an English reader meets the demographic term and hears speed, when what is meant is timing. The measure sinks while couples are having their children later and lifts again once they stop postponing, and the number of children ever born need not have moved at all. Italian never narrowed the word. Il tempo is time itself — non ho tempo, a tempo debito, arrivare in tempo — and it also names the halves of a football match, il primo tempo, and the tenses of a verb, i tempi del verbo. One consequence for reading the table. « Tempo » here answers the question when, and the term that stands beside it in the literature, « quantum », answers the question how many; a fall in the first says nothing yet about the second.