> I'm saying that unless you're doing something complex involving the neutral and ground no technical reason the neutral and the hot contacts on any given devic

> I'm saying that unless you're doing something complex involving the neutral and ground no technical reason the neutral and the hot contacts on any given device are not interchangeable because the electrons are going both directions anyway. They are not interchangable for safety, electric shock, or EMC purposes, because the AC voltage range at neutral and hot contacts are very different. This is when the voltage is measured relative to the nearby environment. Roughly speaking, the neutral AC voltage may oscillate around +/-2V (that's all), relative to the surrounding environment.[] If it's more than that you probably have a fault. Whereas the hot AC voltage will oscillate around the full range you'd expect (~110V RMS or ~230V RMS depending on country). This makes them very different, with regard to human safety, other safety (such as sparking against an earthed pipe, causing fire, contact with water), and current flow to the environment via capacitive coupling. [] - Neutral is bonded to ground somewhere, but not at the mains outlet. The reason it's not zero and a small voltage appears, is because all the devices plugged in closer than the neutral-to-earth bond contribute a small "pull" to the neutral voltage, competing with the bonded voltage.