In the film “The Life and Death of Peter Sellers” which I saw last week something struck me as very odd. At one point, his dad, Bill, exits a room in the family home and turns off the light - by pressing the wall switch DOWN.
In the UK and Ireland the conventional way of operating a wall-mounted light switch is to push it Down for On and Up for Off. The same seems to be true in the parts of northern Europe with which I am familiar (France, Belgium and Germany) and also in Australia.
Do light switches work the other way round in the USA (hence the action in the film, which was co-produced by American company HBO)? If so, has it always been that way? And how did it come about that everyone else appears to do the opposite to the USA [and possibly Canada]?
Yes, the standard, at least in the US, is up=on. I don’t know why it is that way, but having lived here all my life, it’s perfectly natural to me. The only exception is for two-way hall/staircase switches, where two switches control one lighting circuit.
I’m in Australia, and most of my light switches are up for off. That’s the standard, but it’s not universal.
As I understand it, the standard in the US is the other way around. Supposedly this is because an object falling on the switch could switch a device on and this would be bad.
For single switch controlled curcuits, up is typically the standard, but on double-switched circuits, as you might find at either end of a hallway, stairwell, or even some large rooms, the switch may be in either position, depending on the position of the other switch.
I’ve started using that expression because people don’t know if I’m talkind dirty or not.
Dual-switch hallway and stair setups aside is there any logic behind up=off versus the American up=on? I found up/off in Germany and when I was in Australia.
Maybe this is just because I am an American, but considering other ideas and connotations in our language off=down seems to make more sense.
down
adj.
1.1. Moving or directed downward: a down elevator.
2. Low or lower: Stock prices were down today.
3. Reduced; diminished: The wind is down.
2. Afflicted; sick: She’s down with a bad cold.
3. **Malfunctioning or not operating, especially temporarily: The computer is down. **
When we hear the word down, connotations of bad, dark, sad appear. I am feeling down. This whole business is going down. The server is down (off).
Up brings up ideas of light, heaven, hapiness, the sky. I am feeling up today. Things are looking up for me. I the machine is now up and running.
To then go and say down=on (light) and up=darkness just seems to not make any sense.
I recently replaced a light switch in our home. Apparently I ‘cocked-it-up’, because now you have to push it down to turn it on. My friends call it a “dark switch”, rather than a light switch – because you now turn on the dark.
I am relieved to be able to now tell them that this switch is English – or should I say International, considering the Aussies take on this.
Was the light switch in the movie in a real house? Most movie sets don’t have live wires/switches and when the onscreen switch is thrown, someone behind the scenes turns the light on/off, with the visible switch having no funciton, so the actor flips it the other way from where s/he finds it;
If we assume it was a real house with a live switch, was the house in the UK or the USA?
The common rule used by experienced (US) electricians is to wire these so that moving the handle toward the light fixture turns the light on. (Just like a normal switch: moving the handle up toward the light in the ceiling turns it ON.)
But there are exceptions: if there are other similar switches in the house, then you generally wire them to match those switches. And the homeowner may want it wired a specific way (because that’s the way it was in the house I grew up in, usually).
Experienced electricians know that they should wire it the way wanted by the person who’s going to pay your!
It wasn’t a real a real house, just a studio set; so the light itself was, as you rightly say, probably worked by a technician.
But the room was supposed to be in the Sellers’s family home in England. And the actor who turned out the light is British so he ought to have noticed.
Question on the Aussie and other European switches that are down = on - Almost all standard light switches in the US have ON and OFF molded into the toggle. As long as the switch is installed so the words are readable, it will be up = on. Are your switch toggles marked? Or is it decade upon decade of tradition?
BTW - there is a basis in safety for up = on. If something fell against a switch, the toggle is most likely to be pushed down, and the whatever isn’t going to start running or glowing unexpectedly.
None of the light switches I have come across here have the toggles marked. In fact when we moved into our house a few months ago one of the switches was the wrong way round ( down = on ) . It was just a matter of undoing the two fascia screws and twisting the whole thing round to correct this. I imagine that this had happened when the previous owner had loosened the switch to paint round it.