Sorry, couldn't resist. A short is the oposite of an open. An open disconnects power to what ever is supposed to turn on. Opens are failsafe: what everever should work just stops working.
A Short is what you see on submerines when they want drama in a movie. Shorts heat stuf up real fast, causes sparks, causes fires and replacement of wires that loose insulation or repainting of hoods when the hood SHORTS the battery posts. BTW, subs have banks of circuit breakers, as do airplanes, circut breakers open to prevent shorts from setting fire to subs. Your house has breakers in your 'fuse box' to prevent shorts from burning down your house.
An intermittent short is what you have when you first learn to arc weld and the stinger keeps getting stuck on the thing you are welding. It is more likely that your intermitent was an open, as in a flashlight that keeps going out and you bang it to get the light to come back on; the electricity was not flowing while the circuit was open. Hmm, I think that is why we say the switch opens the circuit.
I just get tired of people calling opens shorts as in the guy pulls into the garage and says my right tail light is out, I think I got a short circuit somewhere!
If the light is out because of a short, the fuse would be blown and more than one light, the whole circuit would be out because of the open fuse. (Sorry, I understand that might be confusing to some) If only one light is out, the filiment is probably open, or in our old cars, the connection at the socket has oxidized open.
