"Ok, then why can I get a reading from the secondary side to ground on any old 110/24 transformer? I'm going to have to set one up myself and check this out again. Just for kix."
Once again, it depends on the sensitivity (input impedance) of the meter.
The voltage appearing on the two sides of the secondary of the transformer will "appear" to ground as the line voltage swings back and forth with a sensitive meter (most electronic meters nowadays are almost "standardized" at 10 megohms or more.)
But you could not draw much more than microamp-level current from either side of that transformer secondary to ground. It's just a question, so to speak, of a few electrons stacking up on one lead of the output of the transformer and then, as the input power cycle goes the other way, stacking up on the other side of the output. So to speak --I don't want to get into the capacitance between the output leads of that transformer. Again, with a sensitive meter, you will see this.
Using an old-fashioned not-so-sensitive meter which "loads" the output slightly, you will not see this --usually. I have an old 10,000 ohms per volt D'Arsonval meter I sometimes use to determine whether or not I am getting a spurious reading on my electronic meters because of their very high sensitivity.
Optional reading:
Remember, a D'Arsonval old-fashioned meter has an actual metal-to-metal connection between its leads in the form of the coil of the meter movement --regardless of how big the multiplying resistor is. This actual connection will allow electrons to drain from one lead of the meter to the other, thereby mostly eliminating false readings due to capacitance of the circuit under test.
On the other hand, most electronic meters have a Field-Effect Transistor (FET) in their input circuit ("so to speak"), which operates electrostatically, and there is (almost) no way electrons can drain from the gate, so they can "stack up" on the gate of the FET and can give these "false" readings. "In a manner of speaking," to be simple about it.
Terry, 230RN