this post was submitted on 29 May 2026
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.wtf/post/43436964

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[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 33 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's him it's named after anyway, so I can see the logic in them wanting to do that.
Kind of weird it hasn't been called that all along.

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

electric potential is named the volt in his honour.

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

am i the only one who thinks "volta" sounds much much worse as a unit? Like, there's a reason people say "amp" instead of "ampere", we don't like saying needlessly long words all the time.
Even if you change the official name i'm almost certain it'll just get shortened back down.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

In my country nobody says Amp, we all say Ampere, an Volta sounds absolutely fine, IDK why it was anglicized?

[–] obvs@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

An even better question is "Why would countries not be allowed to localize standardized words for their own languages?"

Would it seriously be a problem if Italy used "volta" and the U.S. used "volt"?

Has it been a problem with France using "litre" and Italy and Spain using "litro" and the U.S. using "liter"?

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 1 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

I think it's a science thing, just like in biology and medicine they use latin, and math has standardized symbols.
Standards are cool, and the standard for the French litre is liter, despite the liter is of French origin as part of the metric system. And was defined as litre in France in 1793, where the name was based on the older french litron.

For some weird reason these standards are almost always anglified no matter what their origins were?
I suppose Italy is free to use Volta, but it is not the agreed upon international standard.

[–] Dicska@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Imagine looking for a Philip screwdriver.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Here's the flipping screwdriver. 🪛
Not that that's a flat! I said PHILIP not flipping!
Thank god it's Philips with an s. 🙏

[–] smeenz@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

But what you really wanted was a pozidriv

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 1 points 23 hours ago

I had to look that up, but yes absolutely.
Here we actually don't normally call them Philips, but "star" screwdrivers, star being "stjerne" in Danish.