Customs and foreign trade

Two thirds of the way down sits il contingente tariffario, and an English reader who lets the first word stand as it looks will read something that is not there. Behind it is the Latin verb contingere, built from con- and tangere, to touch: what touches you, what falls to your lot. Both languages helped themselves to its participle contingens, and each carried off a different half of the sense. English kept the chance. « Contingent » here is chiefly an adjective meaning dependent on something that may or may not happen — « contingent on approval », « a contingency fund » — and the one noun left standing, « a contingent of troops », is a detachment rather than an allowance. Italian kept the lot. Il contingente is the portion allotted, the ceiling given to a country or an importer: so many tonnes at the reduced rate and nothing past it. Hence il contingente tariffario, which English calls a tariff quota, reaching for a word from another root entirely, quota pars, the share of how many. Read contingente as quota and the customs sentences settle at once.