插头、灯泡、一国两制

choi

彼得·戴, 记者来鸿：插头、灯泡、一国两制. BBC Chinese, June 14, 2012.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/si ... 3_fooc_socket.shtml

, which is translated from
Peter Day, A Universal Plug Socket... at Last?  BBC, June 1, 2012.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18266022

Quote:

"Oh, what pleasure to plug in my three-pin British plug the other evening in Inner Mongolia

"Since China now includes Hong Kong, Hong Kongers travelling to their own land needed to be able to use the three-pin plugs they inherited from all those decades of British rule, instead of the two- or three-pronged flat Chinese plugs.

Quote:
(a)
(i) Pom (n; First Known Use 912): "Australian & New Zealand usually disparaging: POMMY"
(ii) Pommy (n; by shortening & alteration from pomegranate, alteration of Jimmy Grant, rhyming slang for immigrant; First Known Use 1912):
"Australian & New Zealand usually disparaging: Briton; especially : an English immigrant"

(b) George Westinghouse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Westinghouse
(1848-1914; "Westinghouse was one of Thomas Edison's main rivals in the early implementation of the American electricity system. Westinghouse's system, which used alternating current based on the extensive research by Nikola Tesla, ultimately prevailed over Edison's insistence on direct current")
(c) The article mentions "the ancient UK standard bayonet * * * Bayonet bulbs * * *."

Bayonet mount
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayonet_mount
(d) This is what British 3-pin plug--and socket--looks like.
BS 546
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BS_546
View photo 1.