Compliance

The fourth entry is o princípio dos quatro olhos, and it is one of those phrases that comes across word for word into something English cannot use. The idea behind it is plain: nothing of consequence leaves the building on one person’s signature, so a second pair of eyes has to pass it first. Continental Europe counts the eyes, and Portuguese counts them here — o princípio dos quatro olhos vale para qualquer pagamento grande. English counts the people instead. In a bank or a laboratory the rule is « the two-person rule » or « dual control », and an auditor writing less formally says « a second pair of eyes ». The reason the calque is avoided is that « four eyes » is already taken, and taken badly: in a British playground it is what one child shouts at another who wears glasses, and « four-eyes » as a noun has no other everyday life at all. The phrase « the four-eyes principle » does circulate in the English written inside European institutions, where everybody knows what it renders, but outside them it still reads as a translation rather than as a term.