Sorry, I stand by my statement. The earth is ground, but it is not a good conductor. The power companies keep one of their lines used for the return path close to ground (except for three phase delta circuit which uses no ground, including no earth ground. They do this by grounding a line at power poles and at user homes. But this ground is NOT used for the carrying of normal metered power.
Electricians use the term ground for the line that is kept at ground potential, and in a three prong circuit, the "ground" prong is connected to a water pipe, Etc but this "ground" circuit is for safety not carring power. Would you normally suspect that a pair of rods hammered into the ground and separated several feet would be as good a conductor of current as a copper wire? Dirt, even wet does not conduct as well as copper. Sea water even with its salt ions does not conduct as well as copper wire.
Best idea is to do a test. Take a motor and run one wire of the motor to the hot line of a plug, put the other into a good ground. (copper rod hammered four feet into soil). Now try the switch. Since the power is "grounded" to a ground in the house, the saw should run right? It won't even humm.
I specifically posted NOT to give me any flap about the third prong...ha
No, I'm not talking about that ground. I'm talking about the black wire and the white wire. I'm not an electrician, and I don't really know a thing about power poles or what the wiring looks like on the other side of the circuit breaker. But If I remember correctly, the black wire is called the "hot" wire, and the white is called the "ground". You can't get shocked by the white wire, but the black wire you can. As I understand it, the reason is that the black wire comes from the power plant, and the white wire is the return, which is connected to the GROUND, that's why it's called the GROUND. And when you get shocked, it's because you are GROUNDED and touching the black wire at the same time...inotherwords, the JUICE from the power plant is cooming to your house via the black wire, then into your body, then to the GROUND, then eventually back to the power plant somehow.
Now, the third prong is something entirely different and is not even required to run electrical equipment. Any appliance or elecrical device has a motor(or load of some kind, like a heating element) and a chassis. Generally, the chassis is just a simple frame made of steel and it has no purpose(electrically speaking, except in cars, in which case the frame/chassis is part of the circuit). It is just there for something to bolt all the electrical junk onto. THe third prong is a wire that goes to the chassis and then to the ground. It's only a safety precaution to protect you from the off-chance that the black wire should somehow come into contact with the chassis and thereby making the entire surface of the appliance or device electrified. If that should happen without a third prong present, you could get quite a jolt every time you touch the appliance if your body is sufficiently GROUNDED TO THE GROUND AS IN YOUR BODY BEING THE WHITE WIRE WHICH IS THE GROUND. At least that's my understanding...I could be wrong.
Now, I could be wrong. If I am I would appreciate you explaning to me where I am going wrong WITHOUT going into all that mumbo jumbo about power lines and power poles. I really don't care to hear about high tension line wiring schematics. Give it to me in terms of household wiring please. If you even breath a whisper about anything the other side of the transformer, I swear Im gonna follow you around this whole site for the rest of the week and flame every post you make...just kidding.