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"I have lately made an Experiment in Electricity that I desire never to repeat."
- twic 7y agoPoultry-related hazardous experimentation also did for Sir Francis Bacon: https://hauntedpalaceblog.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/the-strange-case-of-sir-francis-bacon-and-the-frozen-chicken/ https://hauntedpalaceblog.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/the-stran...
- microcolonel 7y agoAnd this is why you kill mechanically, even if you're going to use electrodes to get better quality meat.
- Virtuoso 7y agoFranklin believed electrocuting the turkey made it uncommonly tender.
- ncmncm 7y agoI have seen assertions that he did not claim to have actually done the kite experiment, but only proposed it, and was after assumed to have done it. Maybe after a while he got embarrassed to correct people?
- gadgetoid 7y ago> The Founding Father once infamously electrocuted himself while trying to kill a turkey with electricity. I'm pretty sure you only get to "electrocute" yourself once. Especially in 1743. I wonder- his lack of grounding may just be what saved his life. If the mentioned chain connected to the outsides of both jars were grounded then there might have been a short across his heart.
- JoeAltmaier 7y agoElectrocute may also mean to injure, not just to kill... The chain was probably the cell ground? Unless the Leyden jar had a different ground wire, which seems improbable. Likely he got it straight across the chest.
- bityard 7y ago"Electrocute" is a portmanteau of "electricity" and "execute".
- machello13 7y agoSure, but in practice it's used to mean just being electrically shocked. Words aren't tied to the meaning implied by their etymology.
- revax 7y agoIn French we have two words, "électrisation" for non-lethal shock and "électrocution" for when death occurs.
- ad404b8a372f2b9 7y agoMost people I know still use "éléctrocuté" to describe what happens to them when they get shocked from an electrical outlet.
- OJFord 7y agoI do not find that to be the case in practice, I occasionally here it used like that, but consider it misuse. I suspect a dictionary might accept it as an 'informal' alternative to the main 'death by' definition.
- joshuacc 7y agoNo need to speculate on what a dictionary might say. We can actually consult one. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/electrocute https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/electrocute
- OJFord 7y agoThank you - it did feel a little silly to type, but I didn't care to search online, nor to get up. Laziness subsided, my Collins (complete, 2016) - which is a rather accepting dictionary of new-fangled words or usages - has only two definitions, both involving death. (1. to kill as a result of electric shock; 2. (US) to execute in an electric chair).
- Jamwinner 7y agoI have been electrocuted many times. It is generally not fatal. Not sure how the year changes anything. A lack of grounding would preclude the conduction of electricity. As this is HV, a small spark gap would not have helped remarkably.
- thfuran 7y agoElectrocution is literally a fatal electric shock.
- logfromblammo 7y agoPortmanteau of electric execution. Strangely enough, not used by Edison in the Current War against Tesla/Westinghouse. He made up words with mort that everyone has since forgotten. For nonlethal electrical mishap, just "shock" is fine, and "electric shock" to disambiguate when there may be confusion with emotional shock from excessive surprise or physiological shock from a traumatic injury.
- ohyes 7y agoWell, if you want to be meaninglessly pedantic about it. But in common use it just means to receive an injurious electric shock, nowadays.
- raldi 7y agoThe article never gives any context for the quote in the headline. It doesn’t even quote it again in the body.
- kyle-rb 7y agoIt's the start of the letter to his brother, which is linked[0]. That part isn't quoted in the body, but I thought the main part of the headline above the quote made it clear what it referred to. [0] https://www.masshist.org/objects/cabinet/december2002/december2002.htm https://www.masshist.org/objects/cabinet/december2002/decemb...
- ceejayoz 7y agoThe article details an incident where he electrocuted himself.
- jcl 7y agoReminds me of a curiosity seen during a tour of the historic Filoli mansion: An appliance that cooks food by running mains power through it. Apparently someone in the early 20th century thought this was a good idea. I don't remember the exact food it was used for -- maybe hotdogs, or bacon? (Seen here, on the counter:) https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a0/f7/35/a0f7352484c9426ea188f63fb42d38b9.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a0/f7/35/a0f7352484c9426ea188...
- simcop2387 7y agoAlmost certainly hotdogs, you can still get those kinds of cookers today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUAkezGstlQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUAkezGstlQ
- NegativeLatency 7y agoElectricity is used to directly cook the bread used in panko bread crumbs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFbQuHE4z7g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFbQuHE4z7g
- triceratops 7y agoThe first thing Sony tried to build (before it was called Sony) was a rice cooker that used the water in the rice to complete the circuit. When the water boiled away, the cooker shut off.[1] It didn't work too well. 1. https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/09/sonys-first-failure-the-1945-electric-rice-cooker/ https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/09/sonys-first-failure-the-1...
- benibela 7y agoIn South America they run electricity through the shower head: https://i.redd.it/lsmtihn21d201.jpg https://i.redd.it/lsmtihn21d201.jpg An in Germany a just guy convinced 88 people to try to electrocute themselves and send him a video of it
- wannabag 7y agoI had one of these in my student dorm in Shanghai ten years ago. If I'd raise my hands too close when shampooing I could feel the shock coming... I took cold showers most of the semester.
- pvaldes 7y agoFortunately they did not give up, and today millions of chicken are instantly killed with electricity followed by decapitation
- ChuckMcM 7y agoWow, 10 lb turkeys. He would be aghast at trying to knock off a 22 lb Foster Farms turkey. :-) One could make the argument that a turkey cooker that used an electrical current would be both more efficient and result in a more even cooking. Assuming the turkey was brined before cooking (fairly common), as the brine evaporates the conductivity goes down and the current would redirect to lest cooked areas. As a result cooking the entire bird evenly.
- droithomme 7y agoWhat's really interesting about Franklin electrocuting chickens is that electrocution went on to become the predominant method of killing chickens in the US poultry industry until 2017 when the largest purchaser of chickens, McDonalds, switched to using asphyxiating gas because activists were upset about the electrocution. Non-McDonalds chicken though is still killed the "old fashioned" way - through electrocution pioneered by Franklin. The electrocution doesn't actually kill the birds, it stuns them and makes them rigid prior to a giant saw cutting off their heads. Here's a video of a typical poultry plant, though this one is in Mexico it's identical to US operations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMSNGZh60zY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMSNGZh60zY (Warning: do not watch if you can't handle it it's exactly as described.)
- dTal 7y ago>The Founding Father once infamously electrocuted himself while trying to kill a turkey with electricity Electrocution is death, or (more recently) serious injury, by electric shock. It does not mean "harmlessly shocked". I have seen this error more and more often. It seems that the word is evolving to become more broad over time, since it's the only handy verb we have for "the application of current to a living thing". It originally meant only execution, hence the construction: electricity + execution. Then it broadened to any death, and then serious injury, and now it's being used for harmless shocks.