At first sight I cannot see anything there which looks like a 1:1 isolating transformer. I'm also a bit confused, because the defintion given for just "transformer" appears to be:
.... which is very different from the definition which you posted (and which I recently quoted), not to mention being seemingly very vague.IEC said:
So, you and Winston cannot say they are NOT.
That is your whole argument for restricting 'transformer' as a name to the original w-w iron core construction.
As you know, they are "transformers" per dictionaries but, as I said, standard/common usage virtually never describes electric kettles, cars, table lamps, plants or livers as "transformers".
You still seem to miss my point about the difference. The word had been established, for over 100 years, as referring to one particular type of hardware, which still exists and is used today. As far as I am aware, "rectifier" has never related to a specific type of hardware, certainly not within my memorable lifetime (50+ years), since metal/selenium rectifiers, thermionic valve rectifiers, silicon and germanium rectifier diodes (even "cats' whiskers"!) etc. all existed at the time I first heard anything about rectifiers.
As you will realise, I agree totally, and I think the most important thing you say is probably "by historical usage if not literal interpretation" - which is the concept that EFLI does not seem to regard as having any importance.
It has importance, but it cannot exclude the definition of the actual word.
No it isn't - ask for what you want.
So, there must be huge confusion and total bewilderment when you go into shop and ask for a 'driver', then.
Definitions are derived from usage, not the other way around. (Yes you can coin a word and give it a definition, but if people refuse to adhere to it you eventually have to update the definition!
)
Exactly.
No he didn't, he took you to the section that has vacuum cleaners. Because they only sell one type of vacuum, so he knows what you mean.
Not at all. IF the word had been used with that meaning for 100+ years, with no other electrical/electronic device being called the same thing during that period, then I might say what you suggest.
We are agreed that a lot of this is about abbreviation/'laziness', but context has also got a lot to do with it. If I go into a lighting shop, or a computing shop, or a sports equipment shop or an an agency which hires out people who sit behind the controls of lorries, then there should be no confusion or bewilderment if I say that I want to see some of their "drivers", because of the context. However, if I go into a lighting or electric shop and ask for "a transformer", the current use of language means that there is an ambiguity relating to two or more items within the same 'context' (electrical/lighting hardware).
Exactly - as I have just written, even if they result from laziness/abbreviation, a lot of these uncertainties and ambiguities cease to exist when one has a 'context' - but that is not the case with "a transformer".
Admittedly even in the context of an electronics wholesaler you would still have to specify whether you wanted a power transformer, line matching transformer, current transformer... But it does seem a shame to overload the name even more with something that's not even a wound component.
Thank you.
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