Product liability

The seventeenth entry is a culpa do lesado, and the word that carries a culpa into English is « fault ». Inside a claim the two match so neatly that nothing warns the reader: a culpa é minha is the fault is mine, and a culpa do lesado cuts down what the producer has to pay. Then « fault » walks into a phrase where the match breaks altogether. « Generous to a fault » is not an accusation. It is a warm compliment: the person has so much of the quality that it has begun to work against him, and the speaker admires him for it. « Honest to a fault » and « loyal to a fault » behave the same way, and the mould takes only a virtue — nobody is « greedy to a fault », because the phrase exists to measure an excess of something worth having. The literal reading is there if you hunt for it, to the point where the quality turns into a failing, but nobody hears a charge being laid. Portuguese builds nothing of the sort on a culpa. It reaches for bom demais or generoso até ao exagero, and both of those sound like a warning where the English sounds like affection.