Purchasing and procurement

The twenty-fifth entry is la consegna in difetto, and an English reader who trusts the shape of the word will go and inspect the wrong thing. « Defect » in English is a flaw: something is wrong with the goods themselves. Il difetto does hold that sense too, but the phrase in difetto belongs to a different family altogether, the one that measures. It says short, under, wanting — and its partner is in eccesso, over. So una consegna in difetto is a delivery where the count came up short, and every carton that did arrive may be perfect. The same pair runs through the language wherever a quantity is held against a target: a gauge tarata per difetto reads low, and a figure calcolato per difetto has been kept on the small side. There is a third reading as well, and no English cognate performs it: essere in difetto is to be in the wrong, at fault, the party that has failed to do what it promised. Only one of the three concerns a flaw in an object, which is why the reply to la consegna in difetto is to count again, not to open a box.