The state and its institutions

The thirty-seventh entry is nomear, and the English word it looks like is the one to keep away from. O presidente nomeou um novo ministro says that the minister now holds the post: the act is over, and the ordinary English for it is « appointed ». To « nominate » somebody is to do something else entirely — to put a name forward for a post, a prize or a seat, and to leave the deciding to whoever comes next. A party nominates a candidate, who is then elected; a film is nominated for an award, and then loses. The gap matters most where the two stages are written into the procedure, since a judge may be nominated by a head of state and confirmed by a chamber afterwards, so that the two verbs name two separate moments of one appointment. English does have a verb that behaves like nomear, and it is the plainest one on the shelf: « to name ». « She was named chairman » means the job is already hers. The Portuguese nouns split the same way, because a nomeação is an appointment while « a nomination » is still only a proposal.