tare - verb

[Victor Steinbok]

No verb, but makes the point (and mentions the tare button). AFAICT, no
dictionary mentions the "tare button".

http://goo.gl/AWWEp
New York Times. Many Salad Bars Are Found to Be Overcharging Customers.
By KATHERINE E. FINKELSTEIN. September 15, 1999
> When most New Yorkers want a light lunch, they go to their local
> self-service salad bar and emerge with a medley of vegetables in a
> plastic container, closed with a rubber band.
> But few know that a little-known trick may be driving up the price.
> Many stores, when calculating the cost of salad per pound, do not
> deduct the weight of the plastic container as required by state law,
> according to a recent inspection by the city's Department of Consumer
> Affairs.
> Inspectors who bought 200 salads in 58 salad bars in Manhattan,
> Brooklyn and Queens found that 40 percent of the stores failed to make
> the required deductions, Jules Polonetsky, the Commissioner of
> Consumer Affairs, said at a news conference yesterday.
> ...
> The cashier must automatically deduct the weight of the containers by
> pressing what is called a tare button, Mr. Polonetsky said. The usual
> deduction, which is visible on the scale, is -0.07 pound for large
> containers and -0.04 pound for small containers. If the scale is at
> zero, the deduction has not been made.



On 12/28/2011 3:24 AM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
> The meanings are so close, it would be nice to define "tare" to encompass both.
>
> Clearly I missed all the memos on taring....
>
> Last time I was at the deli, the meat was weighed on a piece of plastic whose weight was (surely) negligible, and then the meat was wrapped.
>
> BB
>
> On Dec 27, 2011, at 10:45 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>
>> There is another meaning of the combination "tare up" that predates
>> Whole Foods. When you buy bulk items in plastic containers, the cashier
>> is supposed to push the "tare" button to deduct the expected weight of
>> the container to lower the "zero" of the scale (or is "to raise the
>> zero"?*). To perform this function is to "tare up" the product--or, at
>> least, it was in the 1980s. The same happens when the containers are
>> prepackaged, although, in this case, the scale is zeroed out with an
>> empty container, prior to packaging.
>>
>> Deli counters also used to subtract the supposed weight of the wrapping
>> material prior to weighing, but I am not sure this is still done.
>> Perhaps that's one way for supermarkets to push up the margins.
>>
>>      VS-)
>>
>> *: I believe, mathematically, you "raise the zero", in order to get the
>> "negative weight" of the tare, prior to weighing the product. But, in
>> practice, the expression might be in reverse.
>>
>> On 12/27/2011 7:12 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
>>> Whole Foods has signs saying "tare it up," meaning to weigh your empty containers that you bring from home before filling them up with bulk foods.
>>>
>>> Being this is a pun, I don't take it too seriously, but the OED does have this use with citations ranging from 1812 to 1890. Google Books indicates that this has continued in common use up until the present day, at least in technical contexts; perhaps Whole Foods and the green movement will spur this into popular use.
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org