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Usenet Posted 21 years ago
Usage

"lightbulb moment"

I've been mooching around a discussion board on a personal finance website, and when people have been talking about getting themselves out of debt they often refer to the "lightbulb moment" (basically, when they pull their head out of the sand and start tackling the root cause of their problem).

Now, this has got me wondering. Obviously this particular metaphor has its origin in the typical cartoon thing of a lightbulb appearing above someone's head when they've had an idea or realised what's going on. But, when and how did this metaphor originate? Does it have a pre-lightbulb equivalent?

Andrew Gwilliam
To email me, replace "bottomless pit" with "silverhelm"
  

Top answer

[nq:1]I've been mooching around a discussion board on a personal finance website, and when people have been talking about getting ... idea or realised what's going on. But, when and how did this metaphor originate?

— Usenet

  • [nq:1]I've been mooching around a discussion board on a personal finance website, and when people have been talking about getting ...
  • idea or realised what's going on.
  • But, when and how did this metaphor originate?
  • [/nq] If you were better- read, Endless, you might remember a chap called Saul, a moneyman on his way to Syria.
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14 Answers
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[nq:1]I've been mooching around a discussion board on a personal finance website, and when people have been talking about getting ... idea or realised what's going on. But, when and how did this metaphor originate? Does it have a pre-lightbulb equivalent?[/nq]
If you were better- read, Endless, you might remember a chap called Saul, a moneyman on his way to Syria.
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[nq:1]I've been mooching around a discussion board on a personal finance website, and when people have been talking about getting ... idea or realised what's going on. But, when and how did this metaphor originate? Does it have a pre-lightbulb equivalent?[/nq]
I have an illustrated version of Genesis
in which *** has 'a lightbulb moment'.
You can't go back much further than that,
J
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J. J. Lodder filted:
[nq:1]I have an illustrated version of Genesis in which *** has 'a lightbulb moment'.[/nq]
Glory!...
You've just inspired another cartoon I'll probably never get around to drawing...Edison gets his brilliant idea, symbolized by someone holding a candle over his head..r
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[nq:2]I've been mooching around a discussion board on a personal ... did this metaphor originate? Does it have a pre-lightbulb equivalent?[/nq]
[nq:1]If you were better- read, Endless, you might remember a chap called Saul, a moneyman on his way to Syria.[/nq]
Ah, yes, the Damascene moment. And there's "Eureka," Archimedes, and his bath. No bright light there, but an exclamation of discove
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[nq:1]Being bright, being brilliant what is this connection between mental process and light? Maybe it's like "illuminating" and"casting light on the subject" it's easier to understand what's going on when you're "not in the dark."[/nq]
I think so: consider "lucidity", and, among countless other light-metaphors, "illustration", which, after all, has nothing to do with lustration.

Mike
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[nq:2]I wonder if we'd be discussing this if "to see" and "to understand" weren't synonymous.[/nq]
[nq:1]Came the dawn. (No, no new insight, I just had to say it.) I'm trying to turn your sentence around ... and other mental processes. That might show if it's just a series of coincidences in English, or something more universal.[/nq]
Do we count 'a Light to lighten the Gentiles' (Nunc Dimi
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[nq:2]Came the dawn. (No, no new insight, I just had ... a series of coincidences in English, or something more universal.[/nq]
[nq:1]Do we count 'a Light to lighten the Gentiles' (Nunc Dimittis, referring back to 'a light to the gentiles' in Isaiah), or even 'Fiat Lux' (Genesis) in a metaphorical sense?[/nq]
Ah! A lustre (=AmE luster (not the Carter kind though)) enters the discussion.
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Now, this has got me wondering. Obviously this particular metaphor has its origin in the typical cartoon thing of a lightbulb appearing abovesomeone's head when they've had an idea or realised what's going on. But, when and how did this metaphor originate? Does it have a pre-lightbulb equivalent?

You've just inspired another cartoon I'll probably never get around to drawing...Edison gets
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[nq:2]If you were better- read, Endless, you might remember a chap called Saul, a moneyman on his way to Syria.[/nq]
[nq:1]Ah, yes, the Damascene moment. And there's "Eureka," Archimedes, and his bath. No bright light there, but an exclamation of ... him in a flash" would be. And I wonder whether the original intent was brightness or merely shortness of time.[/nq]
The earliest OED cites fo
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[nq:1]I've been mooching around a discussion board on a personal finance website, and when people have been talking about getting ... idea or realised what's going on. But, when and how did this metaphor originate? Does it have a pre-lightbulb equivalent?[/nq]
Englightenment? Illumination?

Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
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