Where does all the weird Chinese component terminology come from?

[Alex Eisenhut]

A lot of things have odd names if you look too closely. Why is a vacuum tube grid called a grid?

This is a grid



But a vacuum tube grid looks like this



So, why isn't it called a fence?

[HwAoRrDk]

I think in that case grid is an abbreviation of "gridiron". With the definition of gridiron being "a frame of parallel bars or beams, typically in two sets forming a grid".

[Whales]

So, I'm a bit lost from the original post.  What exactly does "brick nogging" mean?  Is it just any SMD connector? 

I'm not sure of the definition I saw earlier in this topic (of being a PNP SMD part).  I thought "brick nogging" referred to breakaway parts like this:



Notice the little brick-shaped sections that can be cut away?

My other favourite translation on LCSC is "Lying", eg "50mA 12V SPST Lying Round Button Plugin Tactile Switches ROHS".  No it's not a phonetic English spelling of a Chinese name being used as a brand name.  No it doesn't mean the part specs are false.  It means it's a right angle part, like a right-angle PCB-mount slide switch.

[Whales]

Hmm, a search of LCSC for "brick nogging" seems to defeat both my theory and the previous PnP theory.

- Both SMD and through-hole parts have it in their description.
- Both PnP-able and non-PnPable parts have it.
- Even tactile switches are labelled with brick nogging

Maybe any part that has one line of pins (eg flat flex connector) or multiple parallel lines of pins (eg 2-row headers, tactile buttons) is "brick nogging"?  Exclusions include parts with lines of pins in non-parallel directions (such as LQFP).  A bit odd.

[amyk]

My other favourite translation on LCSC is "Lying", eg "50mA 12V SPST Lying Round Button Plugin Tactile Switches ROHS".  No it's not a phonetic English spelling of a Chinese name being used as a brand name.  No it doesn't mean the part specs are false.  It means it's a right angle part, like a right-angle PCB-mount slide switch.

That was probably something like "lying down".

[bsfeechannel]

A lot of things have odd names if you look too closely. Why is a vacuum tube grid called a grid?

From Wikipedia:

in his [Lee De Forest's] earliest versions [of the Audion], this was simply a piece of wire bent into the shape of a gridiron (hence grid).

[gnuarm]

A lot of things have odd names if you look too closely. Why is a vacuum tube grid called a grid?

This is a grid

So, why isn't it called a fence?

Consider that the name came from the very first tubes.  I bet the grid was, in fact, a "grid" in those early tubes.

[thm_w]

Hmm, a search of LCSC for "brick nogging" seems to defeat both my theory and the previous PnP theory.

- Both SMD and through-hole parts have it in their description.
- Both PnP-able and non-PnPable parts have it.
- Even tactile switches are labelled with brick nogging

Maybe any part that has one line of pins (eg flat flex connector) or multiple parallel lines of pins (eg 2-row headers, tactile buttons) is "brick nogging"?  Exclusions include parts with lines of pins in non-parallel directions (such as LQFP).  A bit odd.

It just means "surface mount". In some cases LCSC didn't fix the translation/category (under Mounting Type).

Yes, some of them do have through hole support leads (USB connectors). Digikey would call those "surface mount, through hole" to cover all the bases. LCSC doesn't go to that level of detail.

[niconiconi]

A lot of things have odd names if you look too closely. Why is a vacuum tube grid called a grid?

This is a grid
[image omitted]

But a vacuum tube grid looks like this
[image omitted]

So, why isn't it called a fence?

Fun fact: its Chinese translation is, indeed, a "Fence electrode" (柵极). The same terminology is also reused for the gate of FETs. So... you know what's going on if you ever see a AliExpress vendor is selling "MOSFET grid driver" in the future... (though, this mistranslation per se is not common, as "gate driver" is a dictionary word). 

So, I'm a bit lost from the original post.  What exactly does "brick nogging" mean?  Is it just any SMD connector? 

Notice the little brick-shaped sections that can be cut away?

"Brick nogging" is a mistranslation of "vertical" + "SMD". I already explained the detailed etymology behind this mistranslation (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/where-does-all-the-weird-chinese-component-terminology-come-from/msg4313581/#msg4313581).

My other favourite translation on LCSC is "Lying", eg "50mA 12V SPST Lying Round Button Plugin Tactile Switches ROHS".  No it's not a phonetic English spelling of a Chinese name being used as a brand name.  No it doesn't mean the part specs are false.  It means it's a right angle part, like a right-angle PCB-mount slide switch.

It's exactly the other way around. The translation is actually "horizontal". "Horizontal" (Lying) refers to the fact that the touchable part of the pushbutton is 0-degree, in parallel with the board. Meanwhile, "Vertical" (Brick nogging) refers to the fact that the touchable part is 90-degree with respect to the board.

The same terminology is also used for all kinds of connectors, such as a USB connector. A "lying" one would be something you usually see on a PC motherboard, for example.

As a demonstration, compare these two connectors.

"Brick nogging 6.2mm SPST 12V SMD"
https://www.lcsc.com/product-detail/Tactile-Switches_Diptronics-DTSL-61N-V-T-R_C495902.html

and

"Lying SPST 12V Plugin"
https://www.lcsc.com/product-detail/Others_C-K-PTS645VK832LFS_C285521.html

(BTW, "plugin" is yet another mistranslation. It should've been "through-hole".)

[Whales]

My apologies.  Thankyou niconiconi.

[niconiconi]

My apologies.  Thankyou niconiconi.

You don't have to apologize. It's LCSC who owes everyone an apology for these ridiculous translations...

[nukie]

@niconiconi - from a place where no one uses English, your English deserves a 

Maybe you will find these names originate from early Chinese academic electronic textbooks.

[Traceless]

Recently I also stumbled upon a weird translation. I was looking for DMM rotary knob contacts/contact wipers on Aliexpress and didn't have much luck until floobydust told me to search for "multimeter shrapnel". Still haven't found any sensibly priced ones though - it just seems to be cheaper to buy the contacts with a meter around them.

[amyk]

Recently I also stumbled upon a weird translation. I was looking for DMM rotary knob contacts/contact wipers on Aliexpress and didn't have much luck until floobydust told me to search for "multimeter shrapnel". Still haven't found any sensibly priced ones though - it just seems to be cheaper to buy the contacts with a meter around them.

I think that came from 碎片.

[Infraviolet]

Would I be right in suspecting also that a lot of these terminologies come from the fact that most linguistic translators aren't experienced in electronics, they've sent a whole career learning to swap between the common vocabulary of two or rmoe languages and never had time to enter the world of engieering, translating a word you don't know the meaning of must be tricky.

[tooki]

Would I be right in suspecting also that a lot of these terminologies come from the fact that most linguistic translators aren't experienced in electronics, they've sent a whole career learning to swap between the common vocabulary of two or rmoe languages and never had time to enter the world of engieering, translating a word you don't know the meaning of must be tricky.

What makes you think any humans whatsoever were involved?

[bsfeechannel]

Fun fact: its Chinese translation is, indeed, a "Fence electrode" (柵极). The same terminology is also reused for the gate of FETs. So... you know what's going on if you ever see a AliExpress vendor is selling "MOSFET grid driver" in the future... (though, this mistranslation per se is not common, as "gate driver" is a dictionary word). 

Another reason why Lee De Forest might have called said electrode a grid is that, before he experimented with partially evacuated tubes and hot filaments, he experimented with open flame detectors.



Neat way to have your signals amplified and your steak well done at the same time.

[pdenisowski]

On the other hand, when I studied German at age 16, I was told that German university students would read Immanuel Kant's works in standard English translations, which was easier to understand.

I've read and studied Kant in both languages (and I even did a thesis discussing the influence on Kant in the works of Heinrich von Kleist)

Trust me, it's not any better in English. 

[pdenisowski]

Regarding bad Chinese technical terminology:  it's not uncommon to see the wrong character being used, even for very common words. 

I recently was testing a transformer and the two sides were labeled "红色" (hóng sè - red) and "兰色"  I'm pretty sure they meant "蓝色" (blue) and not "兰色", both of which would be read "lán sè."  "兰" means "orchid" so "兰色" would probably mean "orchid colored" (if it were a real/common word)

Incidentally, 25 years ago I started what is now the largest online Chinese-English dictionary project (>100,000 words), so I have some experience with Chinese vocabulary, even if my spoken Chinese is still amazingly bad

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEDICT

[amyk]

I recently was testing a transformer and the two sides were labeled "红色" (hóng sè - red) and "兰色"  I'm pretty sure they meant "蓝色" (blue) and not "兰色", both of which would be read "lán sè."  "兰" means "orchid" so "兰色" would probably mean "orchid colored" (if it were a real/common word)

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%85%B0#Etymology_2

It seems it was intended to be the simplified character for blue, but later reassigned to orchid, yet people just started using it anyway. Google Translate says "blue" too.

[pdenisowski]

It seems it was intended to be the simplified character for blue, but later reassigned to orchid, yet people just started using it anyway. Google Translate says "blue" too.

Well, it is easier to write    [5 strokes versus 13 strokes]

According to Wiktionary (not exactly a primary source, but still ...)

"This misspelling appears to be found almost exclusively in Simplified Chinese texts, i.e. 蓝色 is being misspelled as 兰色."

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%98%AD%E8%89%B2#Chinese

Google Translate says "blue" too.

Yes, but it gives the correct hanzi (蓝) when you reverse the direction 

[coppice]

I recently was testing a transformer and the two sides were labeled "红色" (hóng sè - red) and "兰色"  I'm pretty sure they meant "蓝色" (blue) and not "兰色", both of which would be read "lán sè."  "兰" means "orchid" so "兰色" would probably mean "orchid colored" (if it were a real/common word)

So orange can't be a colour because its actually a fruit? Orchid colour is obviously meaningless, as orchids come in numerous colours. 兰 is not ambiguous, as nobody would read it as blue on its own, only when combined with 色 (colour). There are huge areas of overlap in Simplified Chinese. Even in Traditional Chinese the same character can have several meanings. Simplified reduced the character set so much the overlaps are much greater. There are plenty of words in any language which have numerous meanings.

[gamalot]

This use of "兰色" is a very common mistake in China, especially among less educated people, and is somewhat similar to "I don't have no money" in English. 

[pdenisowski]

Simplified reduced the character set so much the overlaps are much greater.

My understanding is that most of those cases involved merging of two characters where one of the two merged characters stayed the same, e.g. 雲 and 云 both becoming 云.  Situations where two different characters were merged into a single, different character (like 發 and 髮 both becoming 发) are significantly less common.

蓝 and 兰 do share a radical in traditional characters (艹 in both 藍 and 蘭) but I get the feeling (not being a Chinese native speaker ) that 兰 is being used simply because it's a lot easier to write and has the same reading.

[coppice]

Simplified reduced the character set so much the overlaps are much greater.

My understanding is that most of those cases involved merging of two characters where one of the two merged characters stayed the same, e.g. 雲 and 云 both becoming 云.  Situations where two different characters were merged into a single, different character (like 發 and 髮 both becoming 发) are significantly less common.

蓝 and 兰 do share a radical in traditional characters (艹 in both 藍 and 蘭) but I get the feeling (not being a Chinese native speaker ) that 兰 is being used simply because it's a lot easier to write and has the same reading.

If you look at the pre-Unicode character sets, the most popular were Big5 for traditional Chinese, and the CNS standard for simplified Chinese. Depending on the variant, Big 5 is about 13000 to 14000 characters. CNS is about 6000 characters, They cover similar needs. That's how much the character set shrunk. Traditionally 云 was just shorthand for 雲, both meaning the same thing - a cloud. Many of the simplifications in simpliifed Chinese were just codifying the simplified way people were already writing those characters in informal writing.