"Danny D'Amico" wrote in message ...
On Thu, 14 Nov 2013 19:39:38 -0600, dpb wrote:

the third wire is the ground but NEC until
relatively recently allowed the ground to also be the neutral

You seem to understand this better than I do.

The way *I* understand a "ground" is that a ground wire carries no current
(unless there is a problem). The "neutral" wire, on the other hand, *always*
carries current.

You are correct. In old installations range and dryer outlets only had three
wires, and it was allowed to use the "neutral" as a ground fault path.