The history of medicine

The fourteenth entry is il registro dei morti, and the noun that opens it is one English shares — right up to the moment somebody is named after it. Il registro is the book in which things are written down, exactly as our « register » is: a parish register, a register of deaths, a register of shipping. Italian calls the person who keeps it l’ufficiale dello stato civile and the office itself l’anagrafe, so the noun stays with the book. English built « registrar » instead, and that word now leads two lives with nothing in common. At the register office a registrar records births, marriages and deaths, which is what the form of the word promises. In a British hospital a registrar is a doctor: a trainee well past the early years, above the house officer and below the consultant, the one who is called at night. No book is involved anywhere. A sentence about the registrar on the ward is therefore about a colleague, and il registro has nothing to do with it.