Financial reporting

La contabilizzazione dei contratti di locazione is lease accounting, and the noun in the middle is the tidiest false friend on the page, because it looks like a word English uses twenty times a day. « Location » in English is a place and nothing else: a shop’s location, a film shot on location, the location of a fault. La locazione in Italian is a contract — the letting of a thing in return for money — and it names no place at all. Il contratto di locazione is the tenancy agreement, dare in locazione is to let out, il canone di locazione is the rent, and the two sides are il locatore, who owns and lets, and il locatario, who pays and occupies: one letter apart, and worth reading twice. When Italian wants what English means by « location » it changes word altogether and says il luogo, la sede or la posizione. The trap runs in one direction only, and it is sharp: a reader who takes i contratti di locazione for a list of premises has turned a standard about renting into a property register.