thanks hayzee. i'll pass the diagram on to my husband. maybe he can explain it to me as i'm a moron when it comes to electricity!
i'm trying to learn at least the basics tho.
all i know is that there were a lot of wires going into the switch (which was cracked in two) that we replaced. i think 5 wires which included the ground.
husband did a little on-line research later on and mumbled something about ground to neutral.... he thought he figured out why the ground wire hadn't been attached on the old switch, aside from the fact that the switch didn't work when it was.