Step where, how?

[vakkotaur]

I was never into sports and that's putting much of it mildly. There were things that did interest me, such as radio. The book that I first learned much of electronics and radio from was originally written in the days of vacuum tubes. The later revision I read mentioned transistors but a mention was about it.

Thus I knew of electron current (just try to explain, sanely, how a vacuum tube works using "conventional current") and of the heater, cathode, grid, anode or plate, and such. This has an impact on how I hear or interpret at least one phrase.

While I know full well the intended baseball-derived meaning of "step up to the plate," whenever I hear that phrase I wonder why someone should closely approach the anode.

Comments

[foolscap001.livejournal.com]

There's a television network called Ion Television. They have ads that go something like "Ion Television: positively entertaining."

I keep saying to the TV, "Then shouldn't it be Cation Television?"

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, you see, the pitcher gives the ball a negative charge when he rubs it up in his hands before the pitch (which is called that because the pitcher's mound used to be literally made of pitch to help him in this process) and the catcher gives the plate a positive charge while he's sending signals to the pitcher. All this is supposed to draw the ball to the plate and the catcher, allowing it to avoid the influence of the bat as it passes. Good batters are able to pick up the positive charge from the plate when they tap the top of the bat on it just before the pitch. This improves their odds of intercepting the negatively charged ball at the proper moment to send it flying off into space...