Ever ask for a Kleenex or Chap Stick when expressing a need for any brand of tissue paper or lip balm? Every hobby, every sport, and every profession is full of jargon. The electrical industry is no different. Your electrician may call it Romex® meaning any nonmetallic, sheathed cable used to wire your house. A hammer is sometimes referred to as a persuader (as in persuading the bum you’re working with to quick dragging his feet!). Since the invention of the incandescent light bulb, electric slang has been in use and continues to spark new terms all the time just about everywhere you can flip a light switch.
Language is constantly evolving. So is electrical work. Diagonal cutters, a kind of pliers, a while back became the portmanteau word “dikes.” Portmanteau words happen when the sounds of a word or phrase is smashed together, resulting in a new coinage (as in ‘smog’ for ‘smoke + fog’). Emphasizing the ‘di-’ of “diagonal” and ‘c’ + ‘s’ sounds of “cutters” brought about the slang “dikes” for pliers.
For a long time, only electricians knew what slang of the trade like this meant and it varied by region. Worse, suppliers tended to hoard this vocational knowledge. David Weinstein, former General Manager of Kennedy Electrical Supply Co., learned this working in the trade for over 17 years but wanted to share this information. Serving and supplying the Northeastern United States, he encountered over the counter “old timers” who for years—without even thinking about it—would refer to products with slang terms. He has a passion for the history of these terms and spent a great deal of time gathering an assortment of terms to “…stop asking the same dumb questions over and over[!]” [i] This gave birth to TRADEslang.com, a website defining the industry slang and offering stories about the term origins. The site had a good run but as Mr. Weinstein’ corporate leadership shifted away from the electrical industry, TRADEslang.com was just too much to upkeep. He has continued to garner success in real estate as CFO of a real estate firm out of New York.
Recently, building on the database he provided, ElectricalSlang.com[ii] has been developed using expertise of the electrical field to provide you with an electrifying lexicon. When you’ve been in the industry for a while you refer to equipment and hardware by slang terms – without considering the technical stuff. Tenured in the business, this website addresses jargon-laden daily operations that might be confusing for the new guy. If you are a newbie to electrical work lost in jargon, peruse this dictionary for a crash-course in what you might hear on-the-job. If you’ve been around as long as copper wire, the dictionary contributions might bring about some nostalgia. As a company spanning across the south, this website realizes lingo also varies from region to region. Electric Slang was created to provide a dictionary to consolidate terminology currently used across the industry and to lead the way in a collaborative effort of electrical workers to contribute new terms as their usage arises.
[i] Interview about TRADEslang.com, 2003. View here: http://ewweb.com/e-biz/electrical-rosetta-stone.
[ii] ElectricalSlang.com is brought to you by Elliott Electrical Supply, Inc. View here: http://www.ElectricalSlang.com.
