Why is it called "main(s)" for the main electrical power?

[arlen holder]

Anyone have a history on why it's called "mains" (as in plural)?
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity>

[Peter Moylan]

On 01/02/19 15:48, arlen holder wrote:

> Anyone have a history on why it's called "mains" (as in plural)?
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity>

There's more than one set of conductors between you and the power
station. The final main inside your house is often called a "main"
(singular).

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Fri, 1 Feb 2019 04:48:21 -0000 (UTC), arlen holder <ar...@arlen.com>
wrote:

>Anyone have a history on why it's called "mains" (as in plural)?
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity>

I've tried to discover an answer to your question via the OED.
No real success!

The use of the plural goes back hundreds of years originally with water
main(s).

main, n.1

8. A principal channel, duct, or conductor for conveying water,
sewage, gas, or (usually in plural) electricity. Cf. main adj.2 5a,
mainsborne adj. Also in plural: the public supply of water, (or
electricity, etc.) collectively. Also fig.
In N. Amer. usage usually only modified, as in water main(s), etc.

1628 in J. Irving Hist. Dumbartonshire (1920) II. 308
[Waterworks:] To repair the manis in the kirk vennal and south
vennal be causeying the same.
1727 R. Bradley Chomel's Dictionaire Oeconomique (Dublin ed.) at
Building Where any Stock-Blocks of Wood with Plugs, or any
Fire-Cocks, were made and fix'd on any Mains [etc.].
1763 Ann. Reg. 1762 120/1 Wooden pipes were inserted into the
mains in almost every street.
1808 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 98 125 The gas..is conveyed by
iron pipes into..gazometers,..previous to its being conveyed
through other pipes, called mains, to the mill.
1825 J. C. Loudon Encycl. Agric. 658 The use of both the large
and small mains is to feed the various trenches with water, which
branch out into all parts of the meadow.
1865 D. Masson Recent Brit. Philos. i. 15 It is not only
Britain..that the writer accuses of this folly of not drawing its
philosophy from the main.
1879 J. Tyndall Fragm. Sci. (ed. 6) II. xvi. 449 The electric
main carrying the outgoing current.
1894 Times 12 July 14/1 The stopcock..was placed in the service
pipe leading from the water main into the adjoining house.
1894 National Observer 189/2 Take the case of a lead-pipe led
into a block of houses from the iron main.
1895 S. P. Thompson & E. Thomas Electr. Tab. & Mem. 4 In factory
wiring it is often preferred to keep the positive and negative
mains far apart.
1921 Daily Colonist (Victoria, Brit. Columbia) 12 Oct. 3/1 (advt.)
10 acres on Island Highway, near station and city school, city
main passes property.
1936 Discovery July 203/1 It is still safer to switch off the
current at the mains.
1986 J. Townshend in A. Limon et al. Home Owner Man. (ed. 2) vi.
ii. 843 If you do disconnect light fittings, first turn off the
current at the main.
1989 C. S. Murray Crosstown Traffic iii. 67 Her sexuality wasn't
something turned on and off at the mains for any man's
convenience.
1992 Harrowsmith Aug. 13/1 If yours is an autonomous house, free
of the grid and the water mains, [etc.].

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[Peter Moylan]

On 01/02/19 21:37, Peter Duncanson [BrE] wrote:
> On Fri, 1 Feb 2019 04:48:21 -0000 (UTC), arlen holder
> <ar...@arlen.com> wrote:
>
>> Anyone have a history on why it's called "mains" (as in plural)?
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity>
>
> I've tried to discover an answer to your question via the OED. No
> real success!
>
> The use of the plural goes back hundreds of years originally with
> water main(s).
>
> main, n.1
>
> 8. A principal channel, duct, or conductor for conveying water,
> sewage, gas, or (usually in plural) electricity. Cf. main adj.2 5a,
> mainsborne adj. Also in plural: the public supply of water, (or
> electricity, etc.) collectively. Also fig. In N. Amer. usage usually
> only modified, as in water main(s), etc.

[snip many examples]

It's my understanding that, in the case of water, you normally have a
main water pipe running down the street (so that's "the main"), and
smaller pipes (not called mains) branching off this for each house.

At the end of the street, though, that main would connect to a larger
main; and some streets would have more than one main pipe. It would, in
my opinion, be normal to call this whole network of pipes "the mains"
(plural). Each individual pipe would be called a main (singular) except
for the branch pipes that are too small to be considered main pipes.

In practice, the topology of the complicated network supplying the city
would be known only to the water supply authority. The average water
user knows only that the water that comes from reservoir to house
arrives via some unknown network of main pipes, thus "the mains".

The same reasoning would apply to gas mains and electric mains. (But not
the telephone network, cable TV, etc. The designers of newer systems
dropped the old terminology.)

[Paul Carmichael]

On 01/02/2019 12:27, Peter Moylan wrote:

> It's my understanding that, in the case of water, you normally have a
> main water pipe running down the street (so that's "the main"), and
> smaller pipes (not called mains) branching off this for each house.
>
> At the end of the street, though, that main would connect to a larger
> main; and some streets would have more than one main pipe. It would, in
> my opinion, be normal to call this whole network of pipes "the mains"
> (plural). Each individual pipe would be called a main (singular) except
> for the branch pipes that are too small to be considered main pipes.
>
> In practice, the topology of the complicated network supplying the city
> would be known only to the water supply authority. The average water
> user knows only that the water that comes from reservoir to house
> arrives via some unknown network of main pipes, thus "the mains".

Heh. That reminds me - there's an English lady that lives on our street. Her response to
the problems we've been having with the village well was "why don't they just connect to
the mains?".


--
Paul.

https://paulc.es/
https://asetrad.org

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Fri, 1 Feb 2019 22:27:15 +1100, Peter Moylan
<pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

>On 01/02/19 21:37, Peter Duncanson [BrE] wrote:
>> On Fri, 1 Feb 2019 04:48:21 -0000 (UTC), arlen holder
>> <ar...@arlen.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Anyone have a history on why it's called "mains" (as in plural)?
>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity>
>>
>> I've tried to discover an answer to your question via the OED. No
>> real success!
>>
>> The use of the plural goes back hundreds of years originally with
>> water main(s).
>>
>> main, n.1
>>
>> 8. A principal channel, duct, or conductor for conveying water,
>> sewage, gas, or (usually in plural) electricity. Cf. main adj.2 5a,
>> mainsborne adj. Also in plural: the public supply of water, (or
>> electricity, etc.) collectively. Also fig. In N. Amer. usage usually
>> only modified, as in water main(s), etc.
>
>[snip many examples]
>
>It's my understanding that, in the case of water, you normally have a
>main water pipe running down the street (so that's "the main"), and
>smaller pipes (not called mains) branching off this for each house.

I'm wondering whether "mains" is an abbreviation of "main pipes".

Wikip:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumbing#History_2

Wooden pipes were used in London and elsewhere during the 16th and
17th centuries. The pipes were hollowed-out logs, which were tapered
at the end with a small hole in which the water would pass
through. The multiple pipes were then sealed together with hot
animal fat.

Perhaps such pipes were still thought of in the plural even when joined
and didn't become a single pipe.

>At the end of the street, though, that main would connect to a larger
>main; and some streets would have more than one main pipe. It would, in
>my opinion, be normal to call this whole network of pipes "the mains"
>(plural). Each individual pipe would be called a main (singular) except
>for the branch pipes that are too small to be considered main pipes.
>
>In practice, the topology of the complicated network supplying the city
>would be known only to the water supply authority. The average water
>user knows only that the water that comes from reservoir to house
>arrives via some unknown network of main pipes, thus "the mains".
>
>The same reasoning would apply to gas mains and electric mains. (But not
>the telephone network, cable TV, etc. The designers of newer systems
>dropped the old terminology.)

--

Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[Janet]

In article <gbipds...@mid.individual.net>, wibble...@gmail.com
says...

UK estate agent descriptions of homes for sale will often specify the
attached services as mains water/ mains sewage/ mains gas/.

If the public water or gas supply is damaged the media might report
a burst water main/ gas main explosion in main road.

Janet.

[spuorg...@gowanhill.com]

On Friday, 1 February 2019 11:27:22 UTC, Peter Moylan wrote:
> The same reasoning would apply to gas mains and electric mains. (But not
> the telephone network, cable TV, etc. The designers of newer systems
> dropped the old terminology.)

With gas, electricity, and water, the one "main" supples all the houses it passes.

With telephone and copper-based cable TV, each house has its own pair of wires or co-axial cable back to the exchange or the cable TV street distributor box. (This is why it can be so slow to get phone/internet connected in some new housing developments.)

Fibre can be 'either way' with passive optical networks using splitters along the run.

Owain

[Mark Brader]

Peter Moylan:

> It's my understanding that, in the case of water, you normally have a
> main water pipe running down the street (so that's "the main"), and
> smaller pipes (not called mains) branching off this for each house.

The city of Toronto calls the pipe to each house a "service line".
I say it's still a main, because there's only one for the whole house:
it's the pipes *within* the house that aren't.

> At the end of the street, though, that main would connect to a larger
> main; and some streets would have more than one main pipe. It would, in
> my opinion, be normal to call this whole network of pipes "the mains"
> (plural). Each individual pipe would be called a main (singular) except
> for the branch pipes that are too small to be considered main pipes.

Exactly.

We, of course, do not extend this usage of "main" to electricity.
We limit it to water and gas, which come in pipes.
--
Mark Brader "[This computation] assumed that everything
Toronto would work, a happy state of affairs found
m...@vex.net only in fiction." -- Tom Clancy

My text in this article is in the public domain.

[arlen holder]

On Fri, 01 Feb 2019 15:01:35 -0600, Mark Brader wrote:

> We, of course, do not extend this usage of "main" to electricity.
> We limit it to water and gas, which come in pipes.

All the answers are very interesting, where I appreciate the complexity
involved, in that it's not always clear whence word usage.

In my brain, to remember this, I'm leaning toward the initial answers which
indicate it's a "plural" of the delivery mechanism (pipes or wires).

We also have to seriously take into account the history that was provided,
where the trailing "s" seems to have been in use for quite some time.

As for regional differences, I only really know Republik of California
usage, where it seems, to me, "mains" is standard usage for electricity
(but I don't recall hearing it in use colloqually for water - but I don't
live in a city - I live OUTSIDE the city where I, personally, live on my
own well water).

More globally, while the more general Wikipedia is only as accurate as what
someone puts into it, the Wikipedia intimates that electricity in "Canada"
is also called "Mains".

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity>
"Mains electricity (as it is known in the UK and Canada;
US terms include grid power, wall power, and domestic power)
is the general-purpose alternating-current (AC) electric power
supply. It is the form of electrical power that is delivered to homes
and businesses, and it is the form of electrical power that consumers
use when they plug domestic appliances, televisions and electric
lamps into wall outlets."

But Wikipedia could easily be wrong or not specific, as, for example,
Toronto usage can be different.

Overall, it seems to have a long history as "mains", for reasons that may
have to do with the fact that the mains is a system for the plurality.

[Kerr-Mudd,John]

On Sat, 02 Feb 2019 18:51:16 GMT, arlen holder <ar...@arlen.com> wrote:

[]

>
> More globally, while the more general Wikipedia is only as accurate as
> what someone puts into it,

This usage seems a bit reminiscient of Ernie Wise's plays "what he
wrote". Is there a better way of expressing it, or is it just me?



--
Bah, and indeed, Humbug.

[Colonel Edmund J. Burke]

On 2/1/2019 3:27 AM, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 01/02/19 21:37, Peter Duncanson [BrE] wrote:
>> On Fri, 1 Feb 2019 04:48:21 -0000 (UTC), arlen holder
>> <ar...@arlen.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Anyone have a history on why it's called "mains" (as in plural)?

Well... As a certified/licensed electrician, I have this to say about what you said.
BALDERDASH!

[arlen holder]

On Sat, 2 Feb 2019 19:54:26 -0000 (UTC), Kerr-Mudd,John wrote:

> This usage seems a bit reminiscient of Ernie Wise's plays "what he
> wrote". Is there a better way of expressing it, or is it just me?

Apologies all around for my ad hoc oral narrative.
o Prosaic it was not.

My excuse?
o It was hacked out at the keyboard within the span of a few seconds.

Hence, doggerel was an almost inevitable result of such haste.
o Nolo contendere...

[Kerr-Mudd,John]

Ah, I was hoping for the sentence, cos I do fail badly at that sometimes.

[arlen holder]

On Sat, 2 Feb 2019 20:23:49 -0000 (UTC), Kerr-Mudd,John wrote:

> Ah, I was hoping for the sentence, cos I do fail badly at that sometimes.

I admit I have no comprehension of what you're asking.

[Kerr-Mudd,John]

That'll be 'cos you snipped the line that I was talking about (and the
next one);

Here; let's start again:


-----
Subject: Re: Why is it called "main(s)" for the main electrical power?
From: "Kerr-Mudd,John" <nots...@invalid.org>
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english

On Sat, 02 Feb 2019 18:51:16 GMT, arlen holder <ar...@arlen.com> wrote:

[]
>
> More globally, while the more general Wikipedia is only as accurate as
> what someone puts into it,

This usage seems a bit reminiscient of Ernie Wise's plays "what he
wrote". Is there a better way of expressing it, or is it just me?

-----

I was hoping someone could reword the "More globally..." sentence without
the (to me ugly) use of "what".

That was all.

[arlen holder]

On Sun, 3 Feb 2019 16:47:03 -0000 (UTC), Kerr-Mudd,John wrote:

> you snipped

I read, I respond, I snip.

Hmmm....
o I respond; therefore, I snip?

Ummm...
o To snip, or not to snip; that is the question?
o All good responses, begin with a snip?
o I only regret that I have to snip, to properly respond?

Drat,.
o I snip ... because it's the right thing to do.

> I was hoping someone could reword the "More globally..." sentence without
> the (to me ugly) use of "what".

Minor edit:
o More globally, while the more general Wikipedia is only as accurate as
that which people put into it...

Majo revision:
o Wikipedia is only as good as what people put into it.

Ooops.
o Wikipedia is only as good as that which people put into it?

[Kerr-Mudd,John]

On Sun, 03 Feb 2019 18:22:39 GMT, arlen holder <ar...@arlen.com> wrote:

> On Sun, 3 Feb 2019 16:47:03 -0000 (UTC), Kerr-Mudd,John wrote:
>
>> you snipped

[]

> Drat,.
> o I snip ... because it's the right thing to do.
>

[]
Snipping is good, but if it removes the object under discussion it's gone
too far! Personally, I'd prefer it if folk made the Subject line
relevant, but that's a lost cause.

>> I was hoping someone could reword the "More globally..." sentence
>> without the (to me ugly) use of "what".
>
> Minor edit:
> o More globally, while the more general Wikipedia is only as accurate
> as that which people put into it...

works, but it seems unwieldy

> Majo revision:
> o Wikipedia is only as good as what people put into it.
>

Nooo!

> Ooops.
> o Wikipedia is only as good as that which people put into it?
>

Much more acceptable to my way of thinking.
Cheers.