Soooooo, that would make the steel club I belong to the:

North Tenessee Electric Vichitra Veena Association

Hey! I like that!

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..just explain why the general public find some confusion...

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I'm afraid I have to disagree with the original post. Not on the content, it's obvious to me that Alan knows his stuff on the topic of the evolution of instruments; far more than I.
But simply that I don't believe the confusion over our instrument with the general population has anything to do with whether it is technically a guitar, or a Zither or whatever. Nor if the guitar as we know it today is even still a guitar.

The majority of people don't know what a PSG is for the single, plain and very compelling reason that they don't see them very often!

Almost everyone in the world would know what an electric guitar is because they see them all the time. Pedal Steel is just not as publically visable.

As far as I can see that's the only reason for any "general public" confusion.

It's going a bit off the subject. As an Englishman who has lived in California for the last 26 years, I could fill a book with the errors you can fall into.

My first was the English expression, "Keep your pecker up !" In England your pecker is your nose, but over here it's your penis. The other is the word Fanny, which in the U.S. means bottom, but in England refers to a part of the female anatomy.

Ian, yes, they call muffins muffins in England, but what they sell over here as English Muffins are not sold in England except in specialty import stores, where they are called American Muffins.

I don't know where you get the idea about zits and bollocks: zits over here are pimples, bollocks speak for themselves, the word is the Ango-Saxon diminutive of balls.

Getting back onto the subject: under the definition of guitar, a Weissenborn really isn't a guitar, either. It has no separate neck, and it could legitimately be called a zither, except that it doesn't have a fingerboard either. Mine just has painted frets, which are there just as markers.

One of the best expressions to go with "pecker up" & "dobber down" is from the Brit lady that asked the Yank she had met to "knock her up some time"!

Do you suppose that there is any connection between "fret"(on an instrument), and "to fret" (as in to worry)?

Re the PSG...are the rods rods, the bell cranks bellcranks, pickups pickups, etc., or are there alternative terms used?

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Maybe electric pedal harp might be a better name

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After Andreas Vollenweider I figure that's already taken.

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Klaus Caprani

MCI RangeXpander S-10 3x4
www.klauscaprani.com

Yes I have two copies of the Story of English. It went along with the BBC Television series which ran to about 6 hrs. and I have that on tape.

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Warning: I have a telecaster and I'm not afraid to use it.
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My web site

FWIW If you listen to a Deering Crossfire - it's a banjo.

Recall Gibson's nomenclature:

"ES" = Electric Spanish
"EH" = Electric Hawaiian

Leo used the same "Spanish" guitar term for the original Esquire (which became the Broadcaster, then Tele). Interestingly, the lap and stand-up models were just called "guitars" initially.

But the pedal steel essentially developed from a "Spanish" guitar, played on one's lap, with a knife or some other hard object sliding around over the frets (not on them) to create notes. Which evolved into the resophonic guitar ("Dobro" is a brand name) to get more volume, to the "EH"-type guitars (made by a bunch of manufacturers) to the first pedal-type guitars, made to change tunings (not to play licks), to the modern pedal steel.

It's a guitar. It's just on a particular branch of the evolutionary tree, with lute-like instruments at the roots.

It doesn't need a name change at all. The name is a short, fairly precise description of what it is, has become common and widespread in usage in conversation and print, and thereby according o the normal rules of the English language it's the correct name.