On Mon, 2007-01-15 at 23:12 +0000, ted.harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk wrote:
On 15-Jan-07 Ian bell wrote:
[...] The other thing I find puzzling in this increasingly PC world is that we are still allowed to refer to male and female connectors - how sexist is that?
I suppose we could revert to good old Plug and Socket connectors (indeed USB cables seem to use these terms already).
Ahh but those terms are not completely interchangeable because a socket can be either male or female (for example on the back of a UPS you have male and female IEC mains connectors but they are all referred to as sockets) Plugs simply are the bits on the ends of leads and sockets are the bits on the equipment they go into.
Even male and female can be harder to distinguish than it used to be as some connectors (particularly RF ones it seems) are best described as indeterminate or simply confused. I know I have spent a reasonable amount of time looking at some connectors and trying to figure out what sex they are. That said I sometimes get that with people as well so maybe it is just me :-)