What caused the change in electronic terminology?

T156@lemmy.world to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 99 points –

What caused the shift from calling things like rheostats and condensers to resistors and capacitors, or the move from cycles to Hertz?

It seemed to just pop up out of nowhere, seeing as the previous terms seemed fine, and are in use for some things today (like rheostat brakes, or condenser microphones).

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That's funny, in Swedish we say "kondensator", in effect, condenser.

Same in French, "condensateur"

On dit aussi beaucoup une capacité ou simplement une capa Pas sur si c'est un angliscisme ou une norme qui évolué

We also say capacité, or simply capa, I am not sure whether it's borrowed from English, or whether the official terminology evolved

Je dis "capaciteur" parfois mais je suis pas mal certain que c'est un anglicisme effectivement

In Spain we say "condensador"

Yes, it's condenser too

Yes, most of people say condensador but I between engineers/technicians in Hispanic America we use both terms depending on the system (condensador for high voltage and capacitor for low voltage).

In german too, but "Kapazitor" is usus too.

edit: though googling it, Wikipedia says "Kondensator(Elektrotechnik)"

So, that’s where Finnish borrowed that word… like so many other words too. Perhaps calling it borrowing isn’t entirely fair, since this thing has been going on for so long and it’s been really extensive. Sort of like the way the British Museum “borrowed” a significant part of their collection from somewhere else.

Perhaps calling it borrowing isn’t entirely fair,

I know, over here we would call that robbery at knife point ;)

Exactly the same in Polish (same spelling).