You know what the f.ck was meant by it, and it's common f.cking usage as
I proved. Why don't you go torch a speed camera or something useful like
that?  

And if you think the 'asians' are exacting in their language of
describing parts, sub-assemblies and other components you've never dealt
with them.

The reason 'the asians' are 'taking over world manufacturing' is because
other than Japan (where things are done well for the most part, but
with their own style as with europe or the US) they are exploiting cheap
labor and cutting corners. People laughed at me when I said that over a
decade ago. When their dog dies of kidney failure from a classic Chinese
material subsitution in the dog food they are all up in arms.

It gets the idea across.

Stop being such a nitpicker.

It's sloppy terminology that no self-respecting electrical engineer
would use.  But calling a device which combines a chopper, a
transformer, and a rectifier (among other things) a "transformer" when
it does something analagous to what a real transformer does is not
surprising for a lay person.

No.  Asians are taking over world manufacturing because they work
cheap.  It doesn't take a huge amount of general knowledge to do most
manufacturing jobs; what's needed is task-specific knowledge, which is
provided by training.

I had similar beginnings. When my age was still in the single digits,
I wired a second speaker that I found in the garbage onto my monaural
record player to make a "stereo" record player. :)

My grandfather encouraged my interest in electronics by buying me a
soldering iron, needle-nose pliers, a solderless breadboard, etc. My
first circuit employed a 7490 decade counter and a 7447 seven-segment
display driver. Anything more complicated than that, however, never
seemed to work correctly for me, even after I took an electronics
class in high school.

That's when I knew software was the career for me. :)

And then you lost your eyesight?