Why “Close the Lights” Instead of “Turn Off the Lights”?

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hello.

I’m Rod Wing calling from, Tucson, Arizona.

Hi, Rod.

We’re glad to have you.

What’s on your mind today?

Yeah.

I had a phrase that, I was interested in that my my wife and her siblings say.

The phrase is close the lights, and that’s always kind of bug me.

Mhmm.

And she’s, you know, close the lights instead of turn off the lights.

And she’s Chinese American, and her family her her parents her father was born in in Guangzhou, China, and mother was born in Chinatown, San Francisco.

So I thought this could be possibly a direct translation from Cantonese into English.

So that’s what I’d like to know more about.

Close the light instead of turn off the light.

Yes.

The clues you’ve given us and your interpretation of them is right on.

It is most likely what’s known as a CALQ, C A L Q E, which is basically a literal loan translation from another language where it’s almost word for word.

And the really interesting thing here is even though you find it a little annoying, English is the odd language out.

Most of the languages of the world don’t use a verb that equals turn or turn on, turn off.

Most of the languages of the world use verbs that mean close and open when they talk about lights.

So we’re kind of the exception.

And so, it’s not only people from Asia who do this, like you’ll get people from Singapore and Malaysia, but also people from Nigeria, India, Pakistan.

It just and even pockets of The United States, you’ll find it.

People who just because for them, there’s a little bit of history why you might say close the light in our culture and other cultures.

The interesting thing here is why people say close the light instead of turn the light.

It’s because lights have been handled differently at different times in the modern era.

Some people grew up with turn knob electrical switches, which was common in The United States.

Some people grew up with knobs on lamps that raised or lowered a wick.

And some people had little doors on lamps that you could move back and forth to change the amount of light or change the amount of air getting to the flame inside, again, controlling how much light is happening.

And so all of these verbs for these other devices kind of inconsistently showed up when electricity became more standard, and the standard modern flip switch became, kind of just par for the course in most electrical builds out in North America.

So this is why we have these different pockets of this, different cultures adapted in different speeds and in different ways to electricity, going from flame devices or gas devices to electrical devices.

Wow, that’s pretty, that’s really interesting.

You call that a, CALQ?

CALQ, c a l q u e.

Yeah.

It’s a literal, like, woofer word loan translation from another language.

I have a technician who works in my my lab, and I asked him today about this.

And he’s from The Philippines.

Yep.

And he says he uses, close the lights.

But he also said the literal translation in, Tagalog is kill the light.

Oh, interesting.

Is, which was pretty interesting.

Yeah.

But even in English.

But he doesn’t use that.

He doesn’t use that.

Yeah.

In The Philippines, though, you do.

I do find in my books of Philippine English, I do find plenty of examples of people saying close or open the lights.

What really interesting is that we have fixed in our heads that somehow turn the light is the default verb, but it’s just a passing It’s just it’s only for this moment, kind of this short little blip of history.

And I’m calling, you know, fifty to one hundred years of blip because history is huge.

It really isn’t hasn’t been entrenched in the language all that long to refer to electricity, because electricity isn’t hasn’t been all that common for all that long.

So it’s not like it’s been like goes back to time and mortal that we’ve been saying turn off the light.

So I should say to my wife and her siblings that they’re in the majority.

You should.

That’s right.

But also just enjoy the truth Yeah.

To If we all spoke alike, how boring would that be?

Okay.

Well, I stand corrected then.

My I’ll have to tell my girls it’s okay to say, close the light.

Yeah.

Sounds like it’s You’re night to make dinner too, Rod.

That’s what I’m thinking.

Empty the dishwasher.

Yeah.

Rod, thank you so much for calling.

Yeah.

It’s in trouble.

Appreciate it.

All right.

Nice to talk to you.

Thanks so much.

I really enjoy your show.

Take care.

Bye.

Bye bye.

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