Customs tariff and origin of goods

The fifth entry is il dazio compensativo, and the first noun repays a minute, because the two languages named this payment from opposite ends of the counter. Il dazio comes down from the Latin datio, a giving, the noun built on dare, to give: the Italian word describes the act, money handed over at the frontier. English named the obligation instead. « Duty » arrived from Anglo-Norman beside « due », what is owed, and it carries no picture of paying at all — which is why one noun serves for the charge at the border and for the officer on duty at the desk. That Latin verb then turns up where nobody looks for it. A medieval letter closed with data Romae, given at Rome on such a day, and the word at the head of that formula was lifted out whole: it is our « date ». « Data » is the same participle in the plural, the things given. So il dazio, the « date » in a diary and the « data » in a file are three deposits of one verb, and only the first still names money.