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Chris -- 2018-04-11

#1 2009-06-20 21:22:57

burred
Eggcornista
From: Montreal
Registered: 2008-03-17
Posts: 1112

"Light emitting dials" and "lead emitting diodes" for LEDs

A school friend of mine in Grade 4 was being scornful of another of our classmates. “He doesn’t even know what a diode is,” he said. I rolled my eyes and groaned to indicate that that was beyond the pail. But to this day, I still don’t have much of an idea of what they are.

But by reading up I can say that diodes are everywhere, and that they’ve been around for a long time. Edison not only patented his much improved incandescent light bulb (which I get), he also patented a bulb that worked as a diode. When the TV repairman used to come to methodically test and replace vacuum tubes in the B&W TV set, she was replacing different sorts of diodes. And I imagine that the silicon beast that sits before me is choke-full of the newfangled diodes that don’t need a vacuum.

But Edison didn’t think, “Aha! I’ve stumbled on the diode!”. The word was coined in 1919 from Greek roots for two paths. I have no idea how this name fits. There is a wire that goes in, and one that comes out. That looks like one path to me, unless you start splitting hairs and say that electrons can go in both directions, or that each wire is a “path”. If you try to read about diodes, you’ll have to learn to believe that not only do electrons flow across a diode, electron-shaped holes flow in the opposite direction.

If this is true, then it fits my situation. Whereas some have a good picture of a diode in their heads, I have a neat diode-shaped hole in there where nothing sits. But it could be worse.

LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) are ubiquitous these days and will light our path to the future. Not everybody sees the same thing when an LED lights up, however. Some see a Light Emitting Dial.


Once the CITYFLO 450 systems enter operation during the second phase, the existing conventional equipment will be replaced as well by new state-of-the-art devices including EBI Track jointless track circuits and EBI Switch 700 electro-hydraulic point machines as well as LED (Light Emitting Dials) type signals.
(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m … _n7071068/)

Business forecast:
“I feel we’ll have an opportunity to get into photographic colors, possibly even colors associated with organic light-emitting dials
(http://www.icis.com/Articles/2000/03/20 … rings.html)

But some LEDs are potentially more threatening. They not only light up, they emit lead, and are “Lead Emitting Diodes”.

Bogus boilerplate copy to support ads:
To make the earth save for all, approaches to manufacturing are being reformed by inventing more appliances that emits less acidic gases, and one of the latest of the inventions is LED lighting. LED lighting stands for Lead Emitting Diode; it is another form of lighting that is gradually replacing the light bulb invented by Thomas Edison several years ago.
(http://ezinearticles.com/?Global-Warmin … id=2187733)

High tech lab:
The Device Prototyping and Fabrication labs include: Organic Lead-Emitting Diode (OLED) Cluster Tools, Cleanroom/Prototyping, and Micromachine Etching labs.
(http://www.utoronto.ca/~nortelin/newsletter/news006.htm)

Solar street lighting advance:
An example of a technology change is the LED (Lead Emitting Diode) bulbs used by SOL which decrease the amount of energy needed so they really extend battery life.
(http://www.betsysellsvenice.com/PageMan … 06585&NF=1)

Last edited by burred (2009-06-20 21:23:52)

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#2 2009-06-21 12:32:48

kem
Eggcornista
From: Victoria, BC
Registered: 2007-08-28
Posts: 2851

Re: "Light emitting dials" and "lead emitting diodes" for LEDs

When Eccles coined the terms “diode” and “triode” in his famous 1919 article, the one cited in the OED, he was actually transferring older terms used in telegraphy, terms used to describe multiplexing, to the new vacuum tube technology. In telegraphy multiplexing (the topic sounds boring, but it isn’t–Alexander Graham Bell’s first telephone was actually a spin-off from some research Bell was doing on telegraphy multiplexing) the terms “diode,” “quatrode,” “hexode,” etc., made some etymological sense because they really did describe pathways. Eccles, when he transferred the terms to the expanding world of vacuum tube technology, mapped pathways to terminals.

Good eggcorn, but we should examine further your assumption that twentieth century scientists have some obligation to respect the subtleties of language.


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

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#3 2009-06-21 13:14:46

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: "Light emitting dials" and "lead emitting diodes" for LEDs

Nobody has an obligation to respect the subtleties, but if they don’t we get to point it out on this forum.


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#4 2009-06-26 06:46:55

burred
Eggcornista
From: Montreal
Registered: 2008-03-17
Posts: 1112

Re: "Light emitting dials" and "lead emitting diodes" for LEDs

OK, I think I got the “path” root a bit wrong, for “ode”. It can mean “way”, and so a diode regulates two-way traffic.

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