In the United States, you turn on any electical switch by turning it up. Why is it that way?

on the switch is has the word "on" when it's in the up position.

If I asked this, and said "why is india opposite the rest of the U.S.?" I would get reported in a hearbeat.

Well it totally makes sense to switch up for on, the sun comes down and the lights go on? No! The sun comes "up".

Why the Europeans do the opposite is the question.

Oh by the way. Electricity was pretty much invented by Americans, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison.

I believe that back in the days of push button switches, there was a uniform standard that the top one was "on" and the bottom one was "off". I think when the change was made to the flip switch they kept the same standard and had the switch pointing towards the "top" in the "on" position and , well, you know the rest.

It was a choice of standard to have them the same the country over, yet three-way switches can be either up or down, and are not marked on off.

There may be a sound reason for it being that way but I could only guess as to why.

Earlier light switches had two buttons, one for off one for on.

It may be as simple as the first one to make a switch like we use today just did it that way.

Well, actually I have a good answer for you. In America, when you turn a switch "on," it is a positive experience (up) and you received what you asked for (+ = positive). In the same tone, negative (or down/ off) is a downer and means that you lost, it's over, light's out.

possibly because we wanted to strike out on our own and forget our European background and on that note not all switches go up n down the dimmer switch's goes around - on is left to right off is right to left

i dont know its like the whole world is metric where not its just the way it is i guess

Because a man thought of it...meaning they wanted it to resemble their "man" part.

When its up...its on!

because we are better and want to be different