Electrical engineering and the grid

Twentieth on the list is la corrente continua, and the danger is that both words translate and the phrase still comes out wrong. Continua is not a claim about the supply being uninterrupted. It means one-directional: la corrente continua is what a battery gives and what a solar panel gives, direct current, and its opposite is the entry above it, la corrente alternata. In English the words « continuous current » are already spoken for, and by a quantity of a completely different kind. On a breaker, a cable or a motor, the continuous current is the current the thing can carry indefinitely without overheating, the rating an engineer sizes against a load. An Italian data sheet calls that la corrente nominale, or la portata for a cable, and never continua. So the two phrases cross over: our « continuous » is their nominale, and their continua is our « direct ». One habit worth picking up while the pair is in view is that both adjectives stand on their own as nouns, which the list itself shows: l’inverter trasforma la continua in alternata.