Picture of a plug and a outlet captioned: "It's simple. Male. Female. Not both. Not a 3rd option. Any questions?" Below:"[laughs in Electrician]" Picture of various different plugs and outlets
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[–] 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Old Czechoslovak oval 380V (3-phase 220V) plugs have 4 genders. The contact gender depends on whether the receptacle is a power source or sink, the sleeve gender depends on whether it's a cable mount (innie) or wall mount (outie). I hate this, they could have made it work with two while still keeping the water resistance flaps like the new CEE round ones.

Contact gender Plug Receptacle
Female FP FR
Male MP MR

This meant that people needed contraptions like this to extend cables:

We have a homemade one with a dodgy wooden base, and two outputs: one has two phases swapped for counterclockwise power.

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