Ever Wondered Why Electric Plugs Have Holes? Here’s Why

One crazy thing about humanity is that there are a lot of things that are involved in our everyday lives that we just accept. At the end of the day, it’s not necessarily a bad thing because it wouldn’t make sense to ask questions about all these things but when somebody brings it up, we can’t help but wonder about it.

One of the questions that was brought up in a YouTube video from Silver Cymbal revolves around a standard electrical plug. Pretty much everybody is familiar with how these things work and what they look like. We all know that there are two metal prongs extending from the plug that goes straight into the wall receptacle and that most of the time, they have a couple of holes cut into them. The thing that we never really stop to think about is why exactly those holes are there in the first place.

As someone who is kind of familiar with how these sorts of things work, my first guess would be that the holes were there to either save on material costs or have something to do with the electric flow. While other people seem to have thought the same thing, neither has anything to do with it.

Instead, the answer is actually pretty boring. Originally, these holes were cut into an electric plug in order to make sure that it wouldn’t move from its socket. Basically, they would provide stability so that these things weren’t falling out all over the place. However, as outlets have improved, the holes no longer serve a purpose. However, it wouldn’t make much sense financially for the people producing them to go through the steps to remove them so they stay in the rotation. Down in the video below, we get an interesting spin on how this mundane item has come along in its development.