Do you know the purpose is of a ground wire in an electrical outlet? To put it briefly, it is there to protect you from electrocution. If there is no ground wire, and you touch a metal part of a malfunctioning appliance, you could very well die when the electrical current uses your body as a conductor to reach the earth. In modern homes, this should not be a concern, since the electrical code has long included grounded receptacles, but in older homes, you can still find ungrounded wall receptacles. Even worse, some homeowners have replaced ungrounded wall receptacles with grounded ones, without doing any changes to the wiring they connect to. These can give you a false sense of security and end up posing a fatal risk. If you are unable to wire a grounded receptacle correctly, you should instead install a GFCI receptacle that will cut the current and prevent damage if there is a malfunction.
