Cords

Strand of exterior lights, one end male plug one female. Idiots start to mount the lights with the female end near their outlet. Get done, become confused, go to store for male to male cord to plug into female end.

The female end is for chaining multiple strands, not for supplying power (directly) from the power socket.

The power can go through the female end just fine, that’s not the problem. The problem is people plug this “suicide cable” into the wall first, thus creating a 120v taser of sorts. Like someone else in this thread said, the only problem from cables like that is people tend to try to backfeed energy into the system with a generator or solar panels. Boom.
- Also, at the end of the chain there is a male terminal exposed with live current. Could cause a fire I guess.
- So is the problem solved by not plugging it into a powered wall plug? Just like... flick the switch off, like you would a light switch before changing a bulb?
  
  Most American outlets aren't switched. They can be but most aren't. If you're really paranoid you can throw the breaker at the panel.
  
  Wait really? I don't think I have a single unswitched plug in my house, and I've never seen another house with even a single unswitched plug. Do US people need to unplug cords to get rid of standby lights?
  
  Behold the typical North American duplex power outlet. They typically do not have a built in switch. They might be controlled by a light switch, so you can throw a switch near the door and have the floor lamps turn on but most are always hot.
  
  That's Australia's.
  Because of the no switch, does US plugs spark a lot when getting plugged in?
  
  Technically yes, as do those switches internally, but if the device you're plugging in is switched off or pulls a very small load it won't be much. If you're plugging in an air conditioner or something that's going to present a big inductive load, and it is switched on so it will get power the instant it plugs in, yeah you might see a little flash of light. make sure such things are switched off before plugging them in.
  
  The solution is pulling down your Christmas lights and hanging them back up the right way.
  
  Yes, but if someone trips over the cord there is a 50% chance the wrong side comes unplugged and potentially kills them, hence why they don't make these cords
Isnt having an open end really dangerous?
- Every Christmas light string I have seen has had a small fuse inside of the plug, so even if you managed to get a female plug full of water or something and somehow manage to get shocked before a breaker trips in the outlet, you're probably just going to blow the fuse.
  
  Every Christmas light I've ever seen were all low voltage. The last Christmas light that was directly into main power instead of having a power convertor plug was decades ago. I guess that's EU regulations at work.
- You cam cover them with electric tape or put a cover on them. It's nobmore dangerous than your home's exterior outlets though.
  
  Homes exterior outlets??? It might be europe but we dont have neither of those seemingly pretty dangerous things.
  
  I'm going to assume you are English, since they seem to have extreme fear of electric shocks. But there is never any issue with exterior outlets. 99% of them have covers like this and are no nore dangerous that light switches on a patio or in your bathroom.
  
  The places where i lived for longer times are hungary, sweden and ireland. Ireland has the same plug as the uk, and in hungary and sweden its the general eu plug. While the plug you linked does seem mostly safe, i think its a good thing that the uk takes electrical safety seriously. My main problem with the female plug is its a christmas tree that can catch on fire and i dont think an exposed wire near it is a good idea. If the cover is required in some way to complete the circuit then i have no problem with it. Thats good design but the sad thing is most of times they skip the good design part.
  
  Thr cover doesn't complete the circuit, it just prevents debris getting into the socket. An extension cord doesn't have a cover on the female end and it is completely safe, just like an outlet in a bathroom or a surge protector.
  
  Ok but an extension chord isnt on a TREE. If the breaker trips or the fuse blows the tree is already on fire.
Aaah, gotcha! Thank you!

A strand of christmas lights resembles an extension cord, but they tend to be made of smaller gauge wire and obviously have little sockets for tiny light bulbs spaced along them. They typically have 2-prong male plug on one end, often with a 2-prong female pass through on the back so you could plug more than one strand into the same receptacle, and they usually end in a female plug so they can be daisy chained.

Sometimes, when installing them on a house or something, the person installing them may not pay attention to which direction is which, and end up installing them so that the female-only end is near where they intended to plug them in. So instead of pulling them down, or running a long extension cord, they go to the hardware store looking for a male-to-male plug adapter.

Power plugs and sockets are gendered for a very good reason; the female receptacle keeps the energized contacts protected inside, and the male plug's contacts should only be energized when plugged in and their outer shells protect them. A male-to-male cable when one end is plugged in and the other is free now has exposed mains current just waving around in the open air ready to kill someone. And, on a smaller note with christmas lights, they usually have a fuse built into the plug, and plugging them in backwards bypasses this for at least the first strand, so it's technically 102.7% unsafe to do this.

The other thing a male-to-male adapter or cable is sometimes used for is to attach a portable generator to your home's electrical system by just plugging it into an outlet, especially during a power failure. They do make what are essentially special male receptacles I think mainly for the RV industry for attaching generators like that, most houses won't have these. Plugging it into a normal wall socket will actually work, but 1. you have bypassed the breaker panel, so the breakers no longer provide over-current protection. You could overheat the wires in the walls and burn down the house. 2. there's a possibility that you're feeding electricity to the entire house through the breaker box and even out to the transformer, which means the lines could be energized for linemen working on them. Throwing the main breaker might prevent that? They make switching gear designed for buildings with their own backup generators that can either manually or automatically sever their connection to the grid when on internal power, but again a doofus trying to make one of these cables probably doesn't have one of those.

Outstanding, thank you for this
Wow. I had no idea. Thank you for educating me.

Their lights usually have a plug on one end and a socket on the other. Ppl put them around the exterior of their hoses, then realise they did it the wrong way, and the socket end is near the outlet they wanted to plug them in.

Or they mounted two strands of lights, and where they meet up it’s either 2 plugs or two sockets accidentally.