Changing bathroom extractor fan from timed to standard - terminate live?

[JohnW2]

Ok, but that's the point - you think everybody being wrong (if that is true), and you have become used to it, makes it right. I disagree.

In a sense, this is a philosophical discussion - as to what language/terminology is 'wrong' and what is 'right'. If the vast majority of people use (and have used for a long time) certain language/terminology, it does not seem obvious (at least, not to me) that it is reasonable that that language/terminology should be regarded as 'wrong'.

As we've often discussed, if you look back far enough in history, a vast amount of language used today has changed, and that 'evolution' must have started with people using words/spellings/grammar which would have been considered 'wrong' at the time. I've never really got you to tell me whether or not you think we are 'wrong' to not still be speaking/writing the English of Dickens, Shakespeare, Chaucer or earlier.

There must have been a time when only 49% were wrong and weren't corrected.

I'm not at all sure about that. I don't know the history of the IEC definition, but I'm not at all sure that there was ever a time when any significant proportion of English-speaking people would have thought it 'correct' to regard 230V (let alone 1000V) as "low voltage". If (as I suspect was the case), it coyuld be established that virtually no-one (of the English-speaking population) was referring to 230V (or 1000V) as "low voltage" before the IEC definition arose (quite probably before the IEC existed), would you agree that it is the IEC, rather than the vast majority of people, who were 'wrong'?

Perhaps, I don't know, a majority of people think spiders are insects. Even if everyone did, it would still be wrong.

I think you are somewhat confusing two things - 'being wrong' (conceptually) and using 'wrong' words/terminology. Thinking spiders are insects is on a par with thinking that GU5.3 is B22 - i.e. 'factually plain wrong'. It's not just a matter of words/language.

Kind Regards, John

 

[EFLImpudence]

I think you are somewhat confusing two things - 'being wrong' (conceptually) and using 'wrong' words/terminology.

That might be the problem and difference between us.
What is the difference in the end of being wrong conceptually and using the wrong word?
Both are caused by ignorance; whether conceptually or just wrong words results in the same outcome.

Thinking spiders are insects is on a par with thinking that GU5.3 is B22 - i.e. 'factually plain wrong'.

Exactly, but you have moved the goalposts by substituting B22 for MR16.
They don't know what insect means in the same way they don't know what MR16 (or B22) means.

It's not just a matter of words/language.

...but it is - with the same result.
When you become used to it, you will accept it - until then you think it silly.

I have no idea how, for example, aweful came to mean horrible rather than wond(e)rous.
I suspect it could be like terribly has become accepted as simply meaning very (clearly ridiculous) as in terribly good has become acceptable as very good; because, I also suspect, some idiot assumed it was the opposite of terribly bad and more idiots copied it.

 

[EFLImpudence]

Just reading another thread and a common mistake reoccurred.

Someone is referring to his lighting circuit as the lighting ring.
Given that only one type of circuit is (usually) formed in a ring, it is odd that this ocurs so frequently.
Will Winston turn up and rightly point out that it is not a ring, causing other people to rebuke him for being correct, or will the day come when the word ring is deemed to simply mean circuit - or is that what they already think?

 

[JohnW2]

That might be the problem and difference between us. What is the difference in the end of being wrong conceptually and using the wrong word?

Surely potentially an awful lot of difference? The spider/insect thing is nothing to do with use of the wrong words. Some (as you've said, probably many) people believe that spiders are insects (i.e. have the characteristics which render them insects), so that they are using the word "insect" correctly, the problem being is that their belief regarding the facts is incorrect.

Exactly, but you have moved the goalposts by substituting B22 for MR16.

I moved the goalposts since, particularly in the past (i.e. halogens), GU5.3s could well have been MR16, in which case there would be nothing wrong with referring to a GU5.3 MR16 lamp/bulb as "MR16" (as BAS has said, GU5.3 and MR16 refer to totally different characteristics of the product). However, there's no way that a GU5,.3 can be B22, so if someone describes it as "B22", that is plain factually wrong, not just a misuse of words. No-one believes, or ever will believe , that "B22" could be an acceptable term to use in relation to a GU5.3.

When you become used to it, you will accept it - until then you think it silly.

No, I couldn't possibly 'accept' referring to a spider as an insect. As above, it's not just a case of 'the wrong word' (e.g. if I started calling spiders, say, "Creepies", but whilst still accepting that they were not insects) but, unless the definition of insect is ever changed (which would, in practice, be next-to-impossible to do), it's just plain wrong.

You still haven't answered my questions about the history of all this. If, as I strongly suspect was the case, the majority of English-speaking people were using "low voltage" to refer only to voltages a lot less than 230V (let alone 1000V or 1500V) (i.e. voltages regarded as being fairly 'safe') prior to the appearance of the IEC (or whoever's) 'definition', do you believe that the IEC (or their predecessors) were wrong to introduce their definition of "low voltage" - which, at the time, would probably have been regarded as 'incorrect' by English speakers?

Kind Regards, John

 

[EFLImpudence]

You still haven't answered my questions about the history of all this. If, as I strongly suspect was the case, the majority of English-speaking people were using "low voltage" to refer only to voltages a lot less than 230V (let alone 1000V or 1500V) (i.e. voltages regarded as being fairly 'safe') prior to the appearance of the IEC (or whoever's) 'definition', do you believe that the IEC (or their predecessors) were wrong to introduce their definition of "low voltage" - which, at the time, would probably have been regarded as 'incorrect' by English speakers?

I think it far more likely that the vast majority of people have never given it a thought so would never have referred to it as anything.

Do you think that professional bodies should not define things related to their industries without considering the views of those not concerned?
Do you think that people wishing to involve themselves in technical matters should not bother to learn the correct terms related to those matters?

 

[EFLImpudence]

Surely potentially an awful lot of difference? The spider/insect thing is nothing to do with use of the wrong words. Some (as you've said, probably many) people believe that spiders are insects (i.e. have the characteristics which render them insects), so that they are using the word "insect" correctly, the problem being is that their belief regarding the facts is incorrect.

Of course it is the use of the wrong word and using it incorrectly.

If they think spiders are insects then they don't know what insect means; it's not because they think spiders have only six legs.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

As we've often discussed, if you look back far enough in history, a vast amount of language used today has changed, and that 'evolution' must have started with people using words/spellings/grammar which would have been considered 'wrong' at the time. I've never really got you to tell me whether or not you think we are 'wrong' to not still be speaking/writing the English of Dickens, Shakespeare, Chaucer or earlier.

The thing about that question is that it ignores the fact that certainly since the times of the second two characters, and to a significant extent since the first, there have been a couple of very relevant introductions which affect the validity of the theory of evolution.

Education and dictionaries.

Once everybody is taught what existing words mean, and how they are spelled and used, and their meaning etc is documented, it becomes a lot harder to say that "wrong" is just "evolution", and much easier and valid to argue that if, for example, 'electrocute' is defined to mean a fatal electric shock then to start using it to mean a non-fatal one is simply wrong, and remains wrong no matter how many people are wrong.

MOD: Thread gone totally off topic again.