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Landscapers, Florists and homeowners work with 'bulbs'.

Electricians work with lamps.

In modern-day usage, color is the more usual American spelling and colour the British, but there's more to it than that. The word derives from the Latin coloris, and thus color more accurately reflects the origin. Colour came by way of the French influence from couleur, which, of course, was itself derived from Latin.

So although many Brits (myself excepted, naturally! ) tend to look upon color as a case of "ignorant Americans corrupting the language" the truth is that both versions were once used here. Over time, color came to be the preferred spelling in America, thanks in part to Mr. Noah Webster and his famous dictionary, while colour came to be the preferred form in England.

The same applies to favor vs. favour, neighbor vs. neighbour, etc. There are inconsistencies in standard accepted British spellings though, e.g. honour, honoured, honouring, but honorary.

A similar situation exists with "zee" vs. "zed" for the last letter of the alphabet. Although most people in England think of "zee" as being of American origin, both were in common use here during the 17th century.

Many spellings, grammatical constructions and usages which are regarded as "Americanisms" here today are, in fact, the older British forms, such as the use of gotten, another "Americanism" which is frequently criticized in Britain.

The -ize vs. -ise issue is relatively recent in linguistic terms. Again, I've met many people here who regard realize, recognize, etc. as being "ugly American corruptions," but the British forms realise, recognise etc. didn't really take hold until well into the 20th century. The 1930 King's English Dictionary still lists the -ize forms as standard with -ise shown as acceptable variants in the addendum.

Although -ise became the more common spelling in recent decades, the -ize ending was still preferred by some publishers until just a few years ago, even if not today (including Pitman and several other "heavy duty" technical publishing houses). The original -ize endings most accurately reflect the Greek suffix -izo, while, once again, the -ise forms came by way of French (e.g. réaliser = to realize).

Accumulator was widely used in England at one time, especially to refer to the individual lead-acid cells which were used to run the filaments of tubes in home radios. Back in the day, every radio shop would take in accumulators for recharging.

On battery vs. cell, strictly speaking a battery is a combination of two of more cells. In everyday speech though, battery is often used loosely to refer to either a single cell or a proper battery of multiple cells.


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 12-24-2006).]

And I have gotten scolded for spelling light , lite many times by my peers who are native born. I learned to spell sofa this way- Chesterfield. And I learned to spell napkins this way- serviettes. I used to get A's in spelling in grammer and high school, but so seldom used the stuff until electrical forums came along. Now its all in the remembererering.

Yes, at the place that writes the standards, the highly educated IEEE. I told her that I might be able to get them some doughnuts much easier.

It's a peeve of mine that guys will use materials with "DO NOT USE FOR" written right on the outside for just what they say not to use them for.

Guess that makes me a flower boy then.

Spell checkers aren't wothout danger either... I never used the English version, but the German version of the Word 2000 spell checker will most definitely offer you words that simply arem't words! With most misspelled words you'll get one or two correct words, one of which is usually the one you intended to use, but also at least one or two non-existing nonsense words.
For example turning the US minister of foreign affairs into a US minister for Russian affairs... (I'm dead serious and it was a freshly installed software and nobody had messed with the dictionary!)... but while that doesn't make sense it's still a word. However, Word is also known for offering words you won't ever find in any dictionary, like "vorhubergehend"...

Let me tell an old joke... A man comes to the display of a computer store and reads a sign: "Microsoft spel chekar vor sail. Worgs grate!"

This is not verified, but I was recently told by one of the counter guys in a supply house (who claims to have taken a class about it) that when we install it into a fixture (fluorescent, HID, etc) its called a "lamp". But when installed into a table lamp or the like, it's called a "light bulb"

Now, I have not even thought about verifying this, but it seems to fit into the conversation.

I pick on Architects all the time when I see them specify "flour scent" lighting. I even had a fantastically good laugh when the building's owner wanted 3400 degree lamps; and the Architette (yes, blonde) asked if we needed more air conditioning if the lights were going to be that hot.

But it's not just our humble trade...my sister (the nurse) told me of another stupid design decision.

A patient came in with a heart-related issue and was diagnosed with "end of life".

It seems that the battery was wearing out in their pacemaker and some ^$&(% idiot decided that "low battery" wasn't what he wanted the diagnostic readout screen to say.

When my kid put a lamp in a "fixture" it plugged it up and we had to get a plumber.

I told him lamps go in luminaires.

A am still having problems with "luminaire" but I do use "lamp holder" for that socket you put lamps in.

Luminaires still sounds like one of those skinny tie singing groups from the 50s.
"Tonight on Ed Sullivan, Lamp Socket and the Luminaires"

I note that the word "luminaire" doesn't even exist in my dictionary, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. It would seem that "luminaire" is a made-up word for the NEC.

[This message has been edited by SolarPowered (edited 12-26-2006).]