Quote:
Originally Posted by humayun manzer  I wanted to ask,
how do we say in english if there is a power failure.
because in my language we refer to power as light
can we say, lights have gone out(in the larger context)
light has gone off
or simply power has gone or light has gone.
thanks in advance.
Humayun Manzer |
I would normally say (BrE): "The power's gone off." - (short for 'has gone off')
It's a fairly loose expression though. These are all acceptable:
1) "(The) power's out" - (short for 'is out')
2) "(The) power's gone" - (short for either 'is gone' or 'has gone')
3) "(The) electrics are out"
4) "(The) electrics 've gone (out)"
It is less common to use 'light' as a synonym for 'power' or 'electrics', but not impossible. So, the above phrases can also be used with 'light'. If I heard it, I would assume that the person meant 'power', but had experienced the outage as a light failure.
Also, there are literally dozens of colloquialisms and vulgarities that may be substituted in these sentences for 'out' or 'gone'. I won't attempt to list them.