So in England we have the ground prong so our cables are all the same, however I know in the states and other places they don’t, so how come no damage is caused if the positive and negative are the wrong way around?
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When I moved to the uk in the 80s and discovered their plugs, I used to rant about them.
– they were unnecessarily huge. And hard. And painful.
– the electrical appliance has an on/off switch.
– it also has a fuse in it.
– the plug itself has a fuse in it.
– the wall outlet it plug into has an on/off switch.
– the outlet it connected to a central circuit breaker or fuse.
Talk about overly paranoid and completely unnecessary. To make matters more infuriating, I would see people watch tv. Then after watching it, they would (this is where I usually got red-faced and loud)
UNPLUG THE DAMN TV FROM THE WALL.
<I feel the old rants starting to build in my head again 40 years later as I write this). Breathe. Calm down.>
Then I lived there for a few years. And slowly started understanding a few things. The big shock to my indignation came from the calm explanation that, “where you come from, houses are what, 30 years old? Over here they could be 400 years old. The wiring is likely 100 years old. Every week somewhere in the uk a house burns down because of old wiring. So yeah. We need a few extra safety features in our stuff “. Then I learned that many electrical devices drew power even when unplugged, and that unlike where I come from where electricity is as cheap and plentiful as the rivers and lakes that generate it, over in the uk they burn coal or use nuclear power plants to create the stuff. So it’s not cheap, nor is it plentiful. The power plants have to keep a schedule of football match days and times to know when the power demand is going to peak, because everyone puts the kettle on at the same time.
So I learned a few lessons about the uk and their humongous Lego foot puncturing plugs.
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