Law and the courts

The ninth entry is o arquivamento, and an English reader who takes it for the archive has understood the opposite. Arquivar um processo is the decision that ends a case: the prosecutor or the judge finds there is nothing to try, and o arquivamento foi decidido por falta de provas means the matter stops there. The English verb « to archive » has never done that work. It moves a finished paper into storage, and it says nothing at all about whether the thing inside it was concluded, abandoned or won — a firm archives its contracts every December and every one stays in force. English reaches for other words here: a case is « dropped », a prosecution is « discontinued », and proceedings are « stayed » when they are merely halted. The picture behind the two words is worth keeping in mind, because the languages took it in different directions. Portuguese treats the shelf as the end of the road; English treats it as a place where a live thing may also sit. So « the case was archived », in a translated report, tells the reader only where the file went.