From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npoiv!npois!cbosgd!mark Newsgroups: net.misc Title: Re: electrical outlets Article-I.D.: cbosgd.2671 Posted: Wed Oct 6 10:52:22 1982 Received: Thu Oct 7 03:00:25 1982 References: unc.4044 While we're on the topic of electrical outlets, I have a question for any electricians on the net. We bought two lamps a few months ago. The vanilla kind with a 3 way switch, a lampshade, etc, that you put in your living room. These lamps have polarized plugs on them. This makes it very hard to plug them into an extension cord that isn't polarized. My question: why are lamp cords polarized? Is there any possible safety gain? Or are all plugs being made today polarized? I know you can buy polarized extension cords now at your favorite grocery store, but we have lots of perfectly good unpolarized cords. It seems like a plot to make us buy new extension cords. Mark