idioms - Cut the lights on


This expression is commonly used in the southern United States from Oklahoma to Virginia, and is patently illogical, and yet fails to inspire any consternation or lack of semantic connection. On a very basic level, I can understand how it probably grew from the slang request to "cut the power", to "cut the lights off", to the corollory request to "cut the lights on".


What tickles me is how remarkably bizarre the expression is, and how totally unremarkable it seems to be to everyone who uses it or hears it. You would never ask someone to "cut the piece back on the cake ", so why is it that no one seems to notice the same impossibility with regards to electricity and lights?




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