"Chris Croughton" <chris@keristor.net> wrote in message
news:slrneds3hv.3jv.chris@ccserver.keris.net...
> On Wed, 09 Aug 2006 04:12:20 GMT, Dan
> <DELETEMEdan_slaughter@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>> You write very well for a non-native writer. Yes, "dead battery" is
>> perfectly acceptable, and, in the United States, would be the term most
>> widely accepted. One would find the term "flat battery" foreign. We
>> would
>> understand, but we would know that it was written by a person whose
>> native
>> tongue isn't English. Other more technical (but boring and unnatural)
>> terms
>> include "(fully) discharged battery" or "unserviceable battery."
>
> To me an "unserviceable" battery would be one which is useless, not
> capable of being recharged. I still often write the UK forces
> abbreviation "U/S" (for "unserviceable") on equipment which is not only
> 'dead' but which cannot be revived (although sometimes it can be
> rebuilt, more often it is destined for the scrap pile).
>
unserviceable
adj 1: not ready for service; "unserviceable equipment may be replaced"
[ant: serviceable] 2: impossible to use [syn: unusable, unuseable]
from www.dictionary.com for unservicable
> As a sound engineer I frequently refer to signals as 'dead' meaning no
> signal or the channel is switched off, this is a common usage in the
> sound/radio/TV/electrical engineering environment (signalling that a
> circuit is 'dead' often being accompanied by a throat-cutting gesture).
>
> Chris C
and, lol.
I am former military, too (also, former signal corps). That is, in fact,
where I got the term. You had me second guessing myself though.
Other technical suggestions include ---> the battery is toast, an electrical
quandary, hunk of junk, pooped out powersource, circuit hole, A?C/s, etc.
Dan
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