Although there will never be complete agreement on proper methods, “grounding” has been around for a long time. I think it’s safe to say it’s been around longer than “electric power” itself. Didn’t Ben Franklin ‘invent’ lightning protection using ‘grounding’ in 1752?
[War story — I remember the first time I had to “float” an oscilloscope on rubber-gasket sheeting to connect its ‘ground’ to a phase in a 480V/1500kVA unit-substation that served a switchboard-sized NEMA size-6YD magnetic starter.]
