"electric" = electric power

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:22 PM -0700 9/18/05, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>It's often used in conjunction with "gas" :
>
>" What about gas and electric ? "
>
>Nor, tsk tsk, do I find "air," air conditioning.
>
>" How can you drive in the summer without air ? "
>
>I heard this for the first time about fifteen years ago, maybe less.
>It's common in classified automobile ads.
>
>JL

And of course there's "central air" to describe a property of houses
that we wished ours possessed this summer.  Fewer syllables than
"A/C", and context pretty well disambiguates.

L