Thermodynamics

The twenty-sixth entry is il trasporto convettivo, and the noun in front of the adjective does quieter work elsewhere in the language than a page of physics would suggest. Il trasporto is indeed carriage: i trasporti pubblici, le spese di trasporto, il trasporto merci. It is also the state of being carried away, and in that sense Italian reaches for it every day. Suonare con trasporto is to play with feeling; parlare con trasporto is to speak with warmth rather than from notes; lasciarsi trasportare is to let oneself be swept along. English owns the same figure and has put it in a cabinet: « transports of delight », « transports of joy », always plural, always a little arch, and never available for what a cellist did last night. The practical rule therefore runs one way only. An Italian sentence pairing trasporto with a verb of speaking, playing or reading is about emotion and not about logistics, and the natural English is « with feeling » or « with real warmth ». One further sense is worth meeting before it surprises anybody: il trasporto funebre is the funeral procession.