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0 pointscrazygringo1y ago0 comments

Not just mainly, but exclusively in my experience. (Import/export tariffs.)

Until this thread, I have never encountered the term "bar tariff" for a list of drink prices, or "energy tariff" instead of rate. Those uses are simply not American English, and you would be misunderstood.

Hetzner is a German company so I find myself wondering if this is a British usage, or a mistranslation of the German word "tarif" that should be "rate"? (A common mistranslation category known as "false friends".)

TIL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff_(disambiguation)

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6 comments · 3 top-level

Symbiote1y ago· 3 in thread

It's perfectly acceptable British English.

21 occurrences of "tariff" on one of British Gas' pages: https://www.britishgas.co.uk/energy/guides/off-peak-electric... ("Your energy provider may offer time of use tariffs and cheaper night-time electricity rates.")

crazygringoOP1y ago

Good to know, so it's an American vs. British thing. Thanks!

Is there any further distinction between a "tariff" and a "rate" in British English? The example sentence you provide uses both, which makes me wonder if there's even more to the picture here.

Symbiote1y ago

Without checking, my feeling is a "tariff" is the whole contracted agreement, and a "rate" is a part of it.

An EV electricity tariff might have a cheap night rate, and a more expensive day rate. Another tariff might be entirely variable rate (price changes every hour).

Wiktionary defines a tariff as "A schedule of rates, fees or prices." so I think my feeling is correct.

kccqzy1y ago

It's not really that. On PG&E's website it also uses the word tariff to refer to prices for electricity and gas. https://www.pge.com/tariffs/en.html

willyt1y ago

One of the most frustrating things about Duolingo is that they refuse to have an International English setting for the language you are learning from. I’m trying to learn french but WTF is a ‘stroller’ or an ‘eggplant’ or even more frustrating are the ones where the word is almost the same in the UK as in France e.g ‘athlétique’ in French is ‘athletics’ in UK English but ‘track’ in US English.

hyperpape1y ago

Unclear to me why you're being downvoted. I previously knew non-US people refer to rates as "tariffs", but I never heard it in a US context. It's not rare, it's just not a meaning of the word Americans typically know.

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