Games and game theory at the table

The fifth entry is o declarante, and it is a word English cannot hand back in one piece. Portuguese builds it straight off declarar and then lets it work everywhere: at the card table o declarante is the player who won the contract and plays both hands; on a tax return, the person whose name stands at the top; in a courtroom, whoever has made a statement. English divides that ground between two endings that look related and behave differently. « Declarer » is the card player and nothing else. « Declarant » comes from the Latin present participle declarans and belongs to customs law and to sworn statements: the person who lodges the entry, the person who signs the affidavit. The split is not an accident of this one word. « Occupier » and « occupant », « claimer » and « claimant », « defender » and « defendant » are all pairs in which the form in -ant has been handed the legal standing and the form in -er the plain act. So the ending carries the room with it. Write « the declarant played both hands » and the game has moved into a customs shed.