Talk:klant

klant versus cliënt
The usage note currently reads: "The difference between Dutch klant and cliënt is that the former buys goods and the latter pays for services." I think this gets fairly close to the actual distinction, but falls a little short of it.

Someone who contracts a plumber, tailor or electrician to repair something or visits a hairdresser, tattooist or prostitute typically is called a klant instead of a cliënt. It seems to me the latter is more typically reserved for people who use certain non-medical professional-class services, such as lawyers, mental-health counsellors, social workers, notaries or institutions of (primarily non-mental) care. Clients of banks or insurance companies can be called either. I'm not sure where patrons of dance schools, alternative medicine or courtesans would fall on this axis. I don't think it is common to use either term for a patron of the performing arts or cinemas.

If the phrasing is kept in more or less its current form, I think it should be noted that people who use non-mental medical services or goods are called patiënt, while a mental-health patient can be called both patiënt or cliënt, probably depending a little on the type of care. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  12:42, 15 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Note also that cliëntèle means the collective of klanten of a shop or business and does not imply professional-class services. See also the second bullet under cliënt#Woordherkomst en -opbouw and the definitions on the Dutch Wiktionary. The distinction appears not to be a sharp one in practice. I think that in many or most contexts klant can be replaced by cliënt (with some risk, though, of suggesting affectation); the converse is rarer but increasingly more common. Only in court will a lawyer invariably refer to the defendant as mijn cliënt – in that context mijn klant is literally unheard. --Lambiam 13:18, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, the distinction in the current version is far too definite. It's also noteworthy that cliënt was formerly more widely used for patients, apparently also for non-mental health; I was completely unaware of that (born late 1990s). I'd also say that klant and to a lesser degree cliënt have a relatively mercurial connotation, that might be why use in artistic contexts is less clear and why substituting klant for cliënt may sound crass. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  13:34, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I too was unaware of a wider use for patients and cannot find any such uses; this may be thoroughly outdated. This text from 1907–08 consistently uses patiënten. --Lambiam 14:37, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Apparently so. The WNT (from 1908) has it, though the quotes pertain to lawyers, and one can find cites for it from the 19th and early 20th c. without too much effort, some of them quite funny:        ←₰-→  Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  15:07, 15 August 2020 (UTC)