Aaron in Los Angeles, California, notes while using public transit in Britain he and other passengers were instructed to alight from the front, meaning “exit the car from the front.” Alight comes from an Old English word alihtan, literally, to “lighten” or “make lighter.” The terms light from and light off mean to “get off of” as in “to dismount,” the latter of which figures in a silly riddle about when cigarettes were mentioned in the Bible. (The answer is found in Genesis 24:64). This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Why Do British Transit Announcements Say to “Alight” from the Front?”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, my name is Aaron. I’m calling from sunny Los Angeles, California.
Sunny Los Angeles, just up the road. How you doing, Aaron?
I’m calling with a burning question.
All right. Set it loose. What is it?
Okay, so I was in London with my girlfriend, visiting her family.
She’s English, and we’re on the tube, as they call it.
And they made an announcement.
Please alight from the front. And I didn’t think anything of it. And then I was sitting on my couch in Los Angeles. I was reading a book and I read the word alight. And I was like, oh, well, we don’t really use that word. Where does it come from? Why alight? And then I kind of did some lazy googling and couldn’t really come up with much. So that’s why I called you guys.
What did you take it to mean when the announcement blared and said, please alight from the front?
Luckily, I had a translator with me sitting next to me.
So she was able to direct me to the front of the train so we can exit from there.
Gotcha.
I also just took it from the context of exit from the front.
Gotcha.
So light meant exit.
Yeah.
Okay.
And you’d never heard that before?
Not in the U.S.
You know, I love public transit and I love using the bus system in L.A.
And they never say alight.
Yeah, alight almost sounds more formal or, you know, a higher register, doesn’t it?
Alight from the bus.
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah.
Well, it’s a super interesting word because it goes back to Old English alighten, which means alight. But originally, the idea was literally to lighten, to take off or take away.
Like if you lighten the load on a horse by getting down from it.
You’ve given me a wonderful opportunity.
Do you like puns?
I do.
Yeah, I do like puns.
Okay, Grant doesn’t.
I’m going to go to the bathroom now.
We’ll be back in a minute.
Okay, perfect.
And then when you alight from the bathroom, we’ll have finished here.
Well, the word light can also mean to lift off of something, like light off or light down.
And so, you know, I’m a preacher’s kid. And when I was an insufferable little girl, I used to go around telling this joke about when were cigarettes mentioned in the Bible?
And that’s Genesis.
I don’t know when.
I’m glad you asked.
Genesis 24, 64, which goes, and Rebecca lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel.
She lighted off the camel.
She struck a match and lit the camel on fire?
I got to tell you, as an ex-smoker, this is, you know, especially someone who smoked camels.
I didn’t know they were biblical.
It’s right there in Genesis 24, 64.
That’s ridiculous.
Burned into my memory.
I might have to get back into it.
That’s the word just for the joke.
Get back into the Bible.
Flash your pack of cities and tell the joke.
Aaron, I have not thought about that in decades, so thank you for reminding me, and I know Grant is grateful as well.
Grateful.
Appreciative of your call, at least.
It was interesting to me because, so a light meaning to lighten, so you’re basically lightening the train by leaving it?
Well, originally, and now, of course, the meaning has changed, but yeah.
It just, yeah, it’s so interesting. It’s kind of, it clues me in when I’m reading a book where the author is from, obviously, depending on some of the language that they’re using and some of the ways that they spell the words, even though they change how they spell the words for like U.S. publications of things, but still like the use of a light.
I was reading Paranisi, the book Paranisi by Susan Clark, I think her name is.
And wonderful book, really, really, you know, fun read.
And then I read that was the book that that got me thinking again about a light because she used the word a light in it.
And I was like, oh, she must be English.
And then and I like that.
I looked through the whole book for like other clues that she was.
And then she was turns out.
There we go.
Yeah.
A little textual mystery solved by word choice.
That’s very cool.
Aaron, thank you so much for sharing with us.
We really appreciate it.
Call us again sometime.
Great.
Thank you so much.
All right.
Take care of yourself.
Bye-bye.
Thanks, Aaron.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Martha and I love to hear about your books and your reading and your encounters with other dialects and language.
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