Zompist Bboard Again

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

I think they can only go "an" (on) and "aus" (off) in German. OK, they can also "flackern" or "flimmern" (flicker).

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.

Latin has allūmināre and illūmināre— i.e. lighting at and lighting in.

French is not a fan of prepositions: “allumer” and “éteindre” (pinching the fuse)

French can also "mettre" (put) the light. But yeah, no prepositions/locative adverbs.

Vilike wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 4:54 pm French can also "mettre" (put) the light. But yeah, no prepositions/locative adverbs.

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.

There are no prepositional verbs though! Except coiloquially in those places where Germanic languages used to be spoken.

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.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri May 16, 2025 2:55 am There are no prepositional verbs though! Except coiloquially in those places where Germanic languages used to be spoken.

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.

Raphael wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 2:29 pm I think they can only go "an" (on) and "aus" (off) in German. OK, they can also "flackern" or "flimmern" (flicker).

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".

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.

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.

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").

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

Torco wrote: ↑Mon May 19, 2025 10:17 pm 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.

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.

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.