Having sorted out the Universal Measurement Problem, I am now left with the Universal Switch Problem...

Up for on, or down for on?

After a day of switching toggle switches, etc, on my various Aircraft, up for on, I find that I am going around my house wondering why my Kettle is not boiling, and why my Hoover is not hoovering, and why I keep switching my lights off!

You see, in my part of the world we switch switches DOWN for on, in a similar way that we drive on the left-hand side of the road, and unwind our Toilet Paper from the outside of the roll.

It takes quite a while to re-educate my brain in this confusing switching application.
I can look at a switch for ages, wondering what I should do to operate the toggle to electrify, or de-electrify, a particular piece of household electrical apparatus before me.. ..!

Therein lies my daily problem!

I wonder if Thomas Edison suffered from a similar dilemma?... ...!

Paul... ... ...!

Fozzer wrote on Mar 5^th, 2012 at 7:39pm:


I've always heard the Brits do things backwards, but even your light switches?   

I believe the reasoning for switching DOWN for off, (up for on), was that if one was given an electric shock by operating a switch, the unfortunate person grasping the switch would automatically fall DOWN, switching the appliance off at the same time, therefore disconnecting the electricity.

So, there endeth the first lesson... ...!

Paul...a Bright Spark in a World of darkness..... ...!

machineman9 wrote on Mar 5^th, 2012 at 7:47pm:


Did you know that Philosophers come from Philadelphia where they practice Philosophising?

...apparently... ...!

Paul... ..!

Which side of the road means little to me... when I used to drive a radio taxi on the night shift, one of the old-timers told me "if you have the whole road, stay in the middle". Wise words.
But this light switch thing... it's just wrong. I was born in the USA, where UP is ON, but one of my most vivid memories of being barely tall enough to reach a light switch is thinking of it in terms of "when the airplane is UP, you can see it better". Seriously, that's how I taught myself to remember it.   Hard to argue with such logic. 

Also, I'm curious: are major switches, safety switches where big current is involved, set up the same way  "over there"? It just makes more sense to me, if things are going horribly wrong and you're more likely to be falling down than standing up, to have electrical switches set up so DOWN is OFF.   

I'm also curious about ye old push-button light switches... they were pretty common in the States at one time, and the top one was ON. After your family retired the whale-blubber lamps, Foz, did you start using the push-button switches, or the ultra- modern toggles that we know today? And was the top one ON, or OFF?

I'm not sure how any of that applies to panel switches on airplanes, but I guess you can always edit the files so they are "correct". 

Fozzer wrote on Mar 5^th, 2012 at 7:39pm:


You know where the hoover is?!!!!!!


For me it's the same as the "G spot".....location a complete and utter bloomin mystery.

Right, 240 volts, so we're on 120 over here.  Well, watts a few volts more or less.  You know us musicians, as long as our amps work, we're good.

Yeah, I know, corny, but us accountants (yep, music and accounting, go figure) need all the humor we can get, esp during tax season. 

Ah ha, so that's why keys point upward.  OK.   Thanks.  Another one of life's mysteries explained.