In English, lights can go "on", "off", and "out"1, but oddly never "in". What idioms do other languages use? Obviously this applies more to languages with phrasal verbs; I'm not aware that they can "sortir" in French, for example.
1 except for the one Morrissey sang about, of course
Lights and where and how they go
Lights and where and how they go
"But he had reckoned without my narrative powers! With one bound I narrated myself up the wall and into the bathroom, where I transformed him into a freestanding sink unit.
We washed our hands of him, and lived happily ever after."
We washed our hands of him, and lived happily ever after."
Re: Lights and where and how they go
I think they can only go "an" (on) and "aus" (off) in German. OK, they can also "flackern" or "flimmern" (flicker).
-
Creyeditor
- Posts: 331
- Joined: Wed Jul 08, 2020 9:15 am
Re: Lights and where and how they go
In Indonesian (at least the varieties I hear) you can make them 'glow/light up' nyala or make them 'die' mati. nyala and mati are also used as more general terms for switching devices on or off.
-
zompist
- Site Admin
- Posts: 4007
- Joined: Sun Jul 08, 2018 5:46 am
- Location: Right here, probably
- Contact:
Re: Lights and where and how they go
Latin has allūmināre and illūmināre— i.e. lighting at and lighting in.
Re: Lights and where and how they go
French is not a fan of prepositions: “allumer” and “éteindre” (pinching the fuse)
Re: Lights and where and how they go
French can also "mettre" (put) the light. But yeah, no prepositions/locative adverbs.
Yaa unák thual na !
-
zompist
- Site Admin
- Posts: 4007
- Joined: Sun Jul 08, 2018 5:46 am
- Location: Right here, probably
- Contact:
Re: Lights and where and how they go
psst allumer < ad + luminare
Also, c'mon, French loves prepositions, just not in this context. The French have to write themselves books like Est-ce à ou de to remind themselves what preposition to use with what verb.
Re: Lights and where and how they go
There are no prepositional verbs though! Except coiloquially in those places where Germanic languages used to be spoken.
Re: Lights and where and how they go
The Russian verbs включать/включить vklyuchat’/vkluychit’ “to turn on” and выключать/выключить vykluchat’/vyklyuchit’ “to turn off” contain the directional prefixes в- v- “in, into” and вы- vy- “out”, so I guess you could say that Russian turns lights in and out, rather than on and off.
Re: Lights and where and how they go
Yes. What I wanted to convey was that we do not say la lumière est dessus(/dedans/dehors/avec/etc); even in my 40%-Germanic-speaking area, we never use a calque of the vernacular 's Liecht isch àà/üs ("the light is at/out") in French.
Yaa unák thual na !
Re: Lights and where and how they go
Which belong to the separable prefixed verb anmachen / ausmachen "switch on / off", lit. "to make at*1) / out".
You also have einschalten "switch on", where ein is a prefix / adverbial by-form of in, and ausschalten "switch off"; but you can't use ein separately to indicate the "on" state like you can use an or aus.
*1) While an is cognate to "on", it rather means "at, by".
Polish similarly has włącza/yć / wyłącza/yć "switch on / off". But in both languages you cannot separate the prefixes and say the lights are "**w / wy" like you can with the prefixes / prepositions in German and English.Glenn wrote: ↑Fri May 16, 2025 9:28 am The Russian verbs включать/включить vklyuchat’/vkluychit’ “to turn on” and выключать/выключить vykluchat’/vyklyuchit’ “to turn off” contain the directional prefixes в- v- “in, into” and вы- vy- “out”, so I guess you could say that Russian turns lights in and out, rather than on and off.
Re: Lights and where and how they go
In Danish you can say "slå lyset til/fra", (lit. "strike the light to/from"), but it would probably be more idiomatic to say "tænde/slukke lyset" ("light/extinguish the light").
-
Glass Half Baked
- Posts: 195
- Joined: Fri Mar 06, 2020 6:16 am
Re: Lights and where and how they go
In Arabic, you do not turn on or off the light; you open or close the light, presumably by analogy to a lamp that has a metal cover or shade.
-
Man in Space
- Posts: 2434
- Joined: Sat Jul 21, 2018 1:05 am
Re: Lights and where and how they go
Or the Sun…صبّاح الخير is a customary morning salutation, and at least in Egypt الخير can refer to an electric light.Glass Half Baked wrote: ↑Sun May 18, 2025 5:24 am In Arabic, you do not turn on or off the light; you open or close the light, presumably by analogy to a lamp that has a metal cover or shade.
Re: Lights and where and how they go
There's the same usage in Thai. Now in Thai, that also applies to powered devices in general, so I always thought of the analogy with a supply of water (or gas), and for electrical devices it has always amused me that it is the opposite of opening or closing an English circuit in English. Opening and closing electric circuits has the opposite effect to opening and closing roads!Glass Half Baked wrote: ↑Sun May 18, 2025 5:24 am In Arabic, you do not turn on or off the light; you open or close the light, presumably by analogy to a lamp that has a metal cover or shade.
-
rotting bones
- Posts: 2836
- Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2018 5:16 pm
Re: Lights and where and how they go
Bengali usually talks about light (alo) blazing up (jole oTha) or being extinguished (nibhe jawa). The words for blazing up literally have the word "up". There is a similar word after extinguished meaning "away", but "extinguished away" is not idiomatic in English.
Edit: In Bengali, you would also say something like, "He blazed the light in the room." You can also talk about turning on the switch, but traditionally not about turning on the light per se.
Edit: In Bengali, you would also say something like, "He blazed the light in the room." You can also talk about turning on the switch, but traditionally not about turning on the light per se.
Re: Lights and where and how they go
In French you do hear 'ouvrir' and 'fermer la lumière' (open/close), at least colloquially. As Richard said, it's a bit confusing if you have the actual electric circuit in mind.
Re: Lights and where and how they go
english really likes positional metaphors. fed up, out of time, in love, jack off, right on the edge. a lot of stuff is up and down something else.
spanish has a non metaphorical default, encedida/prendida for on, apagada for on. we have our metaphors for electric light: first of all, it's light, not power or electricity. light is given or cut [when you close or open the entire house circuit]. light is had or not had [when the property is or isn't connected to the grid], light is paid, it is saved up. sometimes we refer to it as current, but even then there's no spatial meaphors exactly: te da la corriente when you get electrocuted. in spanish, i think, spatial metaphors are being imported: people from central america say "te llamo patrás" for "i call you back" iirc.
spanish has a non metaphorical default, encedida/prendida for on, apagada for on. we have our metaphors for electric light: first of all, it's light, not power or electricity. light is given or cut [when you close or open the entire house circuit]. light is had or not had [when the property is or isn't connected to the grid], light is paid, it is saved up. sometimes we refer to it as current, but even then there's no spatial meaphors exactly: te da la corriente when you get electrocuted. in spanish, i think, spatial metaphors are being imported: people from central america say "te llamo patrás" for "i call you back" iirc.
Re: Lights and where and how they go
I think this is a general Germanic language thing -- e.g. German uses lots of separable prefix verbs where the prefixes much of the time are directly cognate with English's positional particles.
Yaaludinuya siima d'at yiseka wohadetafa gaare.
Ennadinut'a gaare d'ate eetatadi siiman.
T'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa.
Ennadinut'a gaare d'ate eetatadi siiman.
T'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa.
Re: Lights and where and how they go
then again, mandarin also likes to build metaphors around 上 and 下 (up, on and down, under)... come to think of it, we do have some spatial stuff in spanish: subir la temperatura, caer en depresión, levantar un tema, esa fecha está muy encima, necesito subirme al carro... maybe it's just we need to do so using more complicated formulas than [word]+up/down/out/in etcetera.