Amperage..

[keithmac]

When I was doing A level Physics if anyone even whispered the word amperage they would get the blackboard eraser thrown at them!.

Is amperage a legitimate word?, I've always assumed the correct term was current, regardless of context?.

Is it just lazy speak that has become ingrained in language now?.

Any thoughts welcome!.

 

[Dirk]

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/amperage

 

[Drago]

Electrictyists call it ampage, but normal mortals tend to call it amperage.

It's like antennas and antennae. Have an insect with more than one and its antennae, but have more than one radio aerial and its antennas. People within the area of expertise like to do it differently to make us feel like numbties.

 

[Once a Wheeler]

Amperage is now cited in the OED as a mainstream word but it does not figure at all in my 1972 edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. The 1972 work only lists the word Amp in the addenda, where it figures as an abbreviation of the word Ampère, a unit of electrical measurement. I feel sure that engineers, if not academic physicists, have used Amp more or less since the Ampère was defined. It looks as though time and linguistic orthodoxy have now overtaken your former physics teacher. Electricity stays the same but language evolves.

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

The Ampère is the SI unit of electrical current and has a proper definition. All that other stuff is not properly defined although "we all know what it means".

 

[keithmac]

Exactly, to me amperage is just slang really. Seems amazing it's made it to the dictionary but hey ho..

 

[sheddy]

In a few years we'll be ranting about ohmage...

 

[keithmac]

If you see any videos by South Main Auto Repair he says ohmage, but I assume that is tongue in cheek.

I bet resistance will go the same way current has as you say though, only a matter of time..

 

[Once a Wheeler]

Amperage is now cited in the OED as a mainstream word but it does not figure at all in my 1972 edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. The 1972 work only lists the word Amp in the addenda, where it figures as an abbreviation of the word Ampère, a unit of electrical measurement. I feel sure that engineers, if not academic physicists, have used Amp more or less since the Ampère was defined. It looks as though time and linguistic orthodoxy have now overtaken your former physics teacher. Electricity stays the same but language evolves.

As an afterthought, it occurs to me that what may have really annoyed your teacher was the use of amperage to mean current. In other words, the confusion of the phenomenon with its unit of measurement, just as people sometimes confuse temperature with heat. Perhaps it is a professional bugbear of physics teachers: I know one who always 'masses' the ingredients for his cakes rather than 'weighing' them, arguing that he would use the same quantities when baking on the moon where the weights, but not the masses, would be substantially different. It must be what the French teacher would call une déformation professionelle — a specialist's obsession.

 

[Fnaar]

Electrictyists call it ampage, but normal mortals tend to call it amperage.

It's like antennas and antennae. Have an insect with more than one and its antennae, but have more than one radio aerial and its antennas. People within the area of expertise like to do it differently to make us feel like numbties.

I've got feelers out on that one

 

[Fab Foodie]

Shouldn't it be ampage?

 

[figbat]

What about voltage then? A commonly-used, unit-specific word that is probably used in place of potential difference? Out of interest, is there any other unit of pd? In length and weight there are various units for the same measurements but for electrical dimensions it seems only one for each (volt, amp(ere), ohm, farad etc).

 

[Profpointy]

Exactly, to me amperage is just slang really. Seems amazing it's made it to the dictionary but hey ho..

We talk about wattage, which is equivalent term for power expressed in watts. And for that matter, acreage and I'm sure I've heard square-footage,

 

[keithmac]

What about voltage then? A commonly-used, unit-specific word that is probably used in place of potential difference? Out of interest, is there any other unit of pd? In length and weight there are various units for the same measurements but for electrical dimensions it seems only one for each (volt, amp(ere), ohm, farad etc).

I suppose if you went the SI standard then length would be meterage and weight would be kilogramage, might start using those, could start a trend 🤔.

 

[matticus]

weight would be kilogramage?? have you listened to a word, Keith?? Detention every Monday for you!