The art market

The art market has two halves that use different words. In one, la galería works with el artista representado and el precio de lista; in the other, auction houses deal in la estimación and el precio de martillo. The ninth entry, la colocación en una colección, is a dealer's word for getting a work into the right hands — and the noun behind it is one Spanish spends far more widely than English can follow. Colocar is to put a thing where it belongs, so la colocación is the putting: la colocación del parqué is laying a floor, la colocación de la carga is stowing a lorry. Then it becomes about people — buscar colocación is to look for a job, and lleva veinte años en la misma colocación means the same post all that time. And in a dictionary it is a collocation, two words that habitually keep company. English needs « placement », « laying », « post » and « collocation »; Spanish hears one act behind all four.