This is new. The first time I heard it. Was watching a vaporizer commercial on tv. The smokin kind.

The new word sounds like ma. Like ma and pa. Only it was spelled mAh. This vaporizer had 760 ma.

I would have said milli amp hrs. But on tv it's pronounced ma.

It's probably been a new urban word for years. First time I have heard it.

Or is this old news.

 

mAh

Having long suffered the idiocy of 'milliamp seconds' (the damn stupid 'designation' certain tradesmen substitute for Millicoulombs {mC}) -- I'm here to tell ya - Milliamp hours is a new one indeed -- Seems the 'critical condition' of technical literacy just keeps sinking...

Best regards
HP

 

I hope that new word "mah" doesn't catch on. There are enough irritations in every day life without this.

It is clearly analogous to the use of "MHz" at one time for selling computers. At least they pronounced Megahertz correctly back then.

 

Having long suffered the idiocy of 'milliamp seconds' (the damn stupid 'designation' certain tradesmen substitute for Millicoulombs {mC}) -- I'm here to tell ya - Milliamp hours is a new one indeed -- Seems the 'critical condition' of technical literacy just keeps sinking...

Best regards
HP

The guys flying RC airplanes and buying battery powered (cordless) power tools have been using it for years as end users. The guys selling batteries passed the term to them. And, if you check any DATASHEET for a battery from any supplier with technical merit, mAh is on there. And, as someone who has worked joint development projects with big battery producers since the late 1980s, "mAh" was pronounced "ma" then and it was pronounced with such ease and universally that I assume it was not new then.

The fact that it is new to you has nothing to do with the "correctness". It is no more wrong or right than the use of "amps" for amperes or any other acronyms that are pronounced. As long as it is clear to the user: higher mAh means longer usage time. If you have a better term that can be said quickly, I'm sure the guys at Exide, Energizer Holdings, P&G (Duracell) and all the new lithium battery producers would love to hear it.

If mAh, pronounced as "mah" somehow irritates you, check Wikipedia for jargon (specifically "words of art") and acronyms. You'll see Scuba, radar, laser, NATO and hundreds of others across many fields.

 

The fact that it is new to you has nothing to do with the "correctness"

Puleeze tell me you don't pronounce centimetres as "sona-metres"!?

Re: mAh
For the record: I didn't complain about the pronunciation - That said, I wholeheartedly agree with the OP on that 'score' if for no other reason than, owing to the silent 'h', said pronunciation fails to distinguish units of current from units of charge --- The fact remains - tears, consternation and allusions to 'consensus' notwithstanding

My gripe, FWIW, is with the 'dumbing down' of the concept of charge via "current per units of temporal measure" and, to a lesser --albeit significant-- extent, conflation of charge with (electrochemical) capacity...

With jaded regards
HP

 

Puleeze tell me you don't pronounce centimetres as "sona-metres"!?

Re: mAh
For the record: I didn't complain about the pronunciation - That said, I wholeheartedly agree with the OP on that 'score' if for no other reason than, owing to the silent 'h', said pronunciation fails to distinguish units of current from units of charge --- The fact remains - tears, consternation and allusions to 'consensus' notwithstanding

My gripe, FWIW, is with the 'dumbing down' of the concept of charge via "current per units of temporal measure" and, to a lesser --albeit significant-- extent, conflation of charge with (electrochemical) capacity...

With jaded regards
HP

Written mAh, prounced like a son would address his mother in a Hollywood script involving the "dustbowl".

The unit used for larger capacity lead acid batteries, Amp hour, is the Ah, prounced exactly as written, "ah". So, when you are in a lithium battery plant where there are many different capacities (sizes) of batteries produced, there are sometimes clarifying questions - something like this: "Did you say thirty-five? You're talking ah, not mAh, right?"

Puleeze tell me you don't pronounce centimetres as "sona-metres"!

And, for the record, I've never had the joy of working in an industry that uses the centimeter as a unit. When my industry and most of my hobbies/DIY repairs are confronted with metric length/diameter measurements, they are normally expressed in mm. Even in dimensions beyond 2000 mm, the centimeter seems to be avoided. I guess the centimeter is just not accurate enough as a whole unit and if you bother to put tenths of centimeter after a decimal, you can save yourself one character by simply writing whole mm values. I think the only people that use the word "Centimeter" are either school teachers or someone asking for a metric ruler.

Now, the good mechanics I know will tell his assistant to use a "ten mim" wrench to tighten the battery terminals.

 

So, when you are in a lithium battery plant where there are many different capacities (sizes) of batteries produced, there are sometimes clarifying questions - something like this: "Did you say thirty-five? You're talking ah, not mAh, right?"

But why the insistence upon a culture of ignorance in the first place? As I see it 'jargon' is yet another collectivist 'device' with which to oppress the 'working classes' - Well they (the collectivist organizers) know - corrupt the language and subsume the culture - that the dues keep a rollin' on "home" to the "Czar"

And, for the record, I've never had the joy of working in an industry that uses the centimeter as a unit. When my industry and most of my hobbies/DIY repairs are confronted with metric length/diameter measurements, they are normally expressed in mm. Even in dimensions beyond 2000 mm, the centimeter seems to be avoided. I guess the centimeter is just not accurate enough as a whole unit and if you bother to put tenths of centimeter after a decimal, you can save yourself one character by simply writing whole mm values. I think the only people that use the word "Centimeter" are either school teachers or someone asking for a metric ruler.

Centimeter pronounced "sonameter" is a bit of (mercifully 'waning') jargon endemic to certain adjunct areas related to my profession

FWIW I concur with your assessment of the cm as an 'inconvenient' denomination...
To be clear: I do not regard the 'working classes' as ignorant! -- It is, rather, my assertion that certain creeping socialist 'interests' (CIP 'labor unions') are endeavoring to create a subculture thereof via (among other machinations) establishment of a 'language schism'...

Best regards
HP

 

I hadn't heard of sona-meter either.

 

I hadn't heard of sona-meter either.

Thank hevens! The contagion is contained!

FWIW the vulgarism is better represented textually with: 'sohn-a-meter'

Best regards
HP

 

But why the insistence upon a culture of ignorance in the first place? As I see it 'jargon' is yet another collectivist 'device' with which to oppress the 'working classes' - Well they (the collectivist organizers) know - corrupt the language and subsume the culture - that the dues keep a rollin' on "home" to the "Czar"

In the land of corporate research, you have two classes of people. The "hands" and the "minds". The hands are generally hired because they are capable of doing the same experiment over and over and over again. In general, college drop-outs or 2-year associates degree. Ideally, someone with a highly developed desire to following detailed instructions. Each company has their secret way of identifying such individuals so I'll keep quiet on that detail. Anyhow, the minds are best kept away from their own experiments because they are capable of adding variables to experiments in progress with their desire to constantly update/improve/optimize the experiment on-the-fly.

Those Hands, tend to develop the Language of the Art all by themselves. A new molecule gets an unusual abbreviation - usually based on the common name and not the chemical formula or ingredients. Acronyms and initialisms are common but anything that might look close to a woman's name (or forced into a woman's name) tends to become that name - eventually.

So, your claim of unions keeping the uneducated in the dark is not so true. The corporate researcher directors and VPs also have a desire to keep Hands, hands. And Minds, minds. On the occasion that a Hands has the potential and desire to become a mind, it is already too late. They are a mind. Classes are usually organized and a new Mind is added to the team.

 

Centimeter pronounced "sonameter"

The first time I heard that, I wondered why the surgeon was describing the incision in terms of audio decibel meters.

But, yes, I am sometimes irritated by sloppy language and sometimes revert to it as a matter of convenience. A millicoulomb as a milli-amp-second is a way to break down the math of the problem. My power supplies might deliver coulombs, but they are much easier to calculate if I use amps times seconds.

 

But why the insistence upon a culture of ignorance in the first place?

Says the same lady who constantly says things like this -

FWIW I concur

And when talking to her friend in a post it gets even more involved.

 

t is, rather, my assertion that certain creeping socialist 'interests' (CIP 'labor unions')

Centimeter pronounced "sonameter" is a bit of (mercifully 'waning') jargon endemic to certain adjunct areas related to my profession

HP I say you better look over shoulder!

Cuz Worst AFL/CIO and Teamsters can do is give you _Hoffa treatment_ but calling that adjunct so called profession on their lesser training and privs could bring down full force of NNU on your head and word around is they're totally scarier than Teamsters!

 

Says the same lady who constantly says things like this -
And when talking to her friend in a post it gets even more involved.

Shortbus I say you need to decide whether we're too formal or too informal

But being serious, if you are skilled with punctuation maybe you could help with proofreading tutorial? Cuz my punctuation skill is sub par and HP's is just totally nonexistent

 

when I read this, I thought what does a vaporizer have to do with a UPS

 

My gripe, FWIW, is with the 'dumbing down' of the concept of charge via "current per units of temporal measure" and, to a lesser --albeit significant-- extent, conflation of charge with (electrochemical) capacity...

FYI: mAh is NOT "current per units of temporal measure". That would be mA/h, as in proportional to the voltage across an inductor. mAh is "current integrated over units of temporal measure." Very, very different.

The use of mAh for charge is perfectly correct. Just as using Nm or kWh instead of J are perfectly correct.

It's use has nothing to do with dumbing down anything. It has to do with effective, concise, and accurate communication. If we are talking about the capacity of a battery and you are told it is about 10 kC, you probably would have to think about it to figure out what that means from a practical standpoint. Will that run a circuit that draws 100 mA for 4 hours or not? Those are the kinds of questions we need to ask and answer about batteries. But here you need to do some math and always run the risk of making a mistake. But if you are told that the battery's capacity is 2650 mAh, then you can immediately determine that the it has a life expectancy in the 27 hour range at 100 mA and so should work fine (provided 100 mA is a reasonable draw for that battery, which is a question that just knowing the capacity, no matter how it is expressed, won't tell you).

If you want something to be righteously indignant about, walk past a metric pressure gauge. Many of them are marked in kilograms per meter-squared.

As for pronouncing the acronym, I must admit that I have never heard mAh, Ah, (or mA, for that matter) pronounced phonetically, but it doesn't surprise me at all that they are, particularly by people that use them day in and day out. Any acronym that can be pronounced, almost certainly will be. I was working at NBS when it was renamed NIST. The new name sounded so stupid when pronounced that there was actually an official directive that prohibited employees from pronouncing it, rather we were to spell it out just like NBS had always been spelled out. Well, that directive went down to the inevitable defeat. Today, everyone pronounces NIST as a work, it is a word that generally conveys respect, and no one thinks it sounds stupid. Still, I think we dodged a bullet since the original new name was going to be the National Institute of Technology and Standards.

 

when I read this, I thought what does a vaporizer have to do with a UPS

It's simply the capacity of the rechargeable battery located inside the vaporizer.

 

It's simply the capacity of the rechargeable battery located inside the vaporizer.

that was second thought. I just have to order UPS batteries regularly

 

That would be mA/h, as in proportional to the voltage across an inductor. mAh is "current integrated over units of temporal measure." Very, very different.

Indeed it is "very, very different" (said observation being my point!) said confusion owing to unabashed bastardization of convention (which, IMNSHO, being rather more than mere 'semantics') -- ergo my objection to:

conflation of charge with (electrochemical) capacity

It's use has nothing to do with dumbing down anything. It has to do with effective, concise, and accurate communication.

Respectfully -- I find nothing 'effective', 'concise' or 'accurate' to be appreciated in contortion (I daresay revision) of language to the end of 'spoon feeding' "the knuckle-dragging million" (by which I refer to the 'condescension filtered' aspect of the 'general public' - as opposed to the long-suffering technology workers/students)... Inelegance is merely annoying - advocacy --indeed even sponsorship-- of necessarily discipline specific nomenclature, on the other hand, is unacceptable!

As 'a case in point' note that 'mAs' (milliampere seconds) applied to radiology describes charge (and, hence, via extrapolation, exposure/dose) whereas mAs applied to electrochemistry describes capacity -- said concepts bearing (albeit with some qualification) a reciprocal relationship ... In my view such is analogous to the appalling (now, largely institutionalized) conflation of 'energy' with 'work' -- What's next? Weight with Mass? Where does it end?

I think I will never understand the seeming insistence upon making a kindergarten of technical (and, increasingly, pure scientific) disciplines by those who know better! -- As an aside -- While radiology has, FAIAP "cleaned up it's act" in this regard, I feel such is representative of an 'anomaly' as opposed to a 'trend'-- I certainly don't see it happening in manufacturing

@WBahn -- Being, as you are, a bona-fide educator, I genuinely value your input and perspectives on such matters (i.e. 'convention', etc) -- It is my concern, however, that we (as a society) have entered something akin to a 'graveyard spiral' in our headlong pursuit of 'universal accessibility'...

Most sincerely
HP

 

when I read this, I thought what does a vaporizer have to do with a UPS

Don't let that bother you! -- I initially thought the 'appliance' in question was a humidifier

Best regards
HP