Why is is said that an alarm clock is going off when it is really coming on?
The expression “an alarm clock is going off” is a linguistic quirk in the English language that can be traced back to historical usage. In this context, “going off” means that the alarm is activating or starting to ring, and “coming on” could be interpreted as the alarm being activated or turned on. While it might seem counterintuitive when you think of “off” and “on” in terms of switches or buttons, language often evolves in ways that may not align perfectly with literal meanings.
The use of “going off” in this context is an example of idiomatic language, where the meaning of a phrase is understood based on common usage rather than a strict interpretation of the individual words. Over time, these idiomatic expressions become widely accepted and ingrained in language usage, even if they don’t seem to make logical sense when analyzed word by word.
So, when people say that an alarm clock is “going off,” they are simply using a well-established idiomatic expression to convey that the alarm is ringing or sounding its alarm, even though it may sound counterintuitive from a literal perspective.
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