Diplomacy

The thirteenth entry is o depositário, and it is the one line on this page where English draws a line that Portuguese does not. We have two nouns here, and a single letter keeps them apart. « A depositary » is the state, government or organisation entrusted with the original text of a treaty: it receives the signatures, registers every ratification and tells the other parties what has been lodged. « A depository » is a place — a building, a vault, a store where something is kept, as in « a grain depository ». The first is a custodian with duties; the second is a room with a door. Portuguese runs both senses through o depositário and lets the sentence decide, and it keeps o depósito ready for the building whenever the building is what is meant. Two consequences for anybody writing. In the English of treaties, « depositary » is the only correct spelling, and « depository » in that position reads as a slip of the finger. And the adjective follows its noun: one writes « the depositary functions » of a government, never « the depository functions ».