On Sun, 05 Sep 2010 08:57:05 -0700, Fred Abse
wrote:

On Sun, 05 Sep 2010 07:11:20 +0100, Eeyore wrote:

Phil Hobbs wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
John Fields wrote: ANSI reference designators.pdf

Only for antiquated Americans of course.

Do please especially explain the relevance of the letter Q to indicate
a transistor or U for an IC.

Graham

Chronological snobbery. I thought it was Brits who liked to keep old
names for things, such as your treasury department, which is still named
after the gingham tablecloth that they used to count the money on,
around a thousand years ago. (*)

The name Treasury ( which one could critice itself for being
'old-fashioned' despite common US usage ) has no connection with
tablecloths. You ought to do your research before posting.

You ought to read Phil's posting again. The word he was commenting on was
"exchequer".


http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/about_history.htm

" The origin of the name "exchequer" derives from the chequered
table (based on the abacus) which was used from about 1110 for
calculating expenditure and receipts. "


Ah! You woke up ;-)



British English btw is renowned for accepting many forms of linguistic
influence inluding taking entire foreign phrases into common use. In
this respect it is probably the most dynamic language in the world.

In exactly the same way that American English, Australian English, Indian
English, Caribbean English, Canadian English, African English, Irish
English, do.

Most of the non-English countries of the world are even more willing
to accept "foreign" phrases, which they do by learning the entire
English language.





I think that Scottish English qualifies as a separate language, too.


Now explain why U = integrated circuit and Q = transistor. It defies any
form of common sense.

Sensible usage is 'IC' and 'TR'.

Who cares what the reasons were? It's a standard. If you don't need to
observe it, don't.

I think that regulars in this group are more than familiar with your
anti-American views. You are entitled to hold them. However, your
repeated pettifogging over differences in language and practices became
boring several years ago. We are different nations, with different
languages and customs. Get over it.

Americans invented electronics, invented modern electronics, invented
the vacuum triode, the opamp, the transistor, the IC, semiconductor
RAM, uPs, LEDs, lasers, programmable logic, all sorts of stuff. We
picked the reference designators, because we needed them first.

John