Purchasing and procurement

An English speaker reading a complaint from goods inwards will stumble over die Charge, because it looks like something added to a bill. It is nothing of the kind. Die Charge is a batch: everything made in one run, from one mix, under one number, and when parts fail it is the first thing anybody asks for — Aus welcher Charge stammen die Teile? The word came from French and kept the French sound, a soft sh at the start and the middle sound of « measure » before the final e. What English calls a charge lives elsewhere: a fee is die Gebühr, an extra on the price is der Aufpreis, and to charge somebody for something is etwas berechnen. The word has one more use, in another room entirely: die höheren Chargen are the senior ranks of an organisation, a slightly old-fashioned phrase. On a delivery note, though, it always means the batch, and the number beside it is what lets a fault be followed back to the machine that made it.