Sunflower is reading "Water for Elephants," by Sara Gruen, a fiction work about a circus in the 1930s. Several times someone has referred to "redlighting" or being "redlighted." The implication seeming to be losing one's job or worse. Neither she nor I can find a definition. How about it - anyone know what it means?

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Originally posted by Asa Lovejoy:
Sunflower is reading "Water for Elephants," by Sara Gruen, a fiction work about a circus in the 1930s. Several times someone has referred to "redlighting" or being "redlighted." The implication seeming to be losing one's job or worse. Neither she nor I can find a definition. How about it - anyone know what it means?

Def'n: a visit to a notorious place of impropriety, usually sited in the sleazy zones of towns or cities.(source Anon.)

I can only think of two meanings, neither of which seems to fit the context. The first is the one suggested by pearce, although I have only ever seen such areas referred to as "red-light" (with a hyphen). The second might possibly refer to the practice by some drivers of passing through a traffic light on red, and thus by extension taking a great risk.

Another possible is that it is circus jargon of some sort, but I'd have thought that the author would have explained it if that were the case.

Googling on redlighting and circus yields some discussions of the book. One person says this in a comment on Amazon:

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The reader is introduced to a strict caste system from bosses to performers to roustabouts that determines one's position among a long train of characters. The practice of 'redlighting' is particularly powerful, a Darwinian, survival of the fittest practice where the circus bosses have the used up roustabouts tossed from the train as excess baggage.

Interview with the authoress:

I had never heard of redlighting before reading your book.
I was sitting in Sarasota in their reading room just taking notes, thinking, 'This is crazy. I can't believe someone could fire someone else by throwing them off the back of a moving train.'
"Yeah, and if they landed badly, they were dead," I point out.
Well, yes. The reason it's called redlighting is because -- if they like you -- they throw you off while the train slows to pass by a railway yard. You can see the red light of the yard and find your way back to town. A courtesy, if you will. But if they don't like you....

Of course, all that shows is that it's what she meant by the word, not that she's accurately reporting a bona fide term.

EDIT: Found this in another interview; the authoress is speaking:
SARA GRUEN: I was seeing all sorts of things that I knew I really wanted to incorporate, like redlighting, which is the practice of throwing somebody off the back of a moving train when you don’t want them working for you anymore ...

It strikes me that the expr should mean the flashing of a red light during the performance of a stand-up comic

Redlighting is referred to on this site on Circus history.

http://www.circushistory.org/Bandwagon/bw-1963Sep.htm

It is, indeed - and the explanation given above would seem to fit.

And welcome to our site, Lisa T. I hope you enjoy your time here.

Good job of research, Lisa!

Welcome to the menagerie!

I find the term to be very evocative: the last thing you'd see on a passing train (at least when I was growing up, and in the days of the circus trains) was the single red light on the back of the caboose.

Thanks for the memory, TSUWM. As a small child in rural South Carolina I remember the eerie wail of a steam locomotive's whistle, and the thrill of standing next to the tracks and watching those iron leviathans go belching by, shaking the ground as they passed. NOT EPA-frienddly, but spectacular!!!

Wabash Cannonball


Listen to the jingle the rumble and the roar as she glides along the woodland
through the hills and by the shore
hear the rush of the mighty engine hear the lonesome hobos call
he's riding through the jungle on the Wabash cannon ball

she pulled in to the station one cold December day
as she rolled up to the platform you could hear all the people say
now theirs a gal from Birmingham she's long and she's tall
she came down from Georgia
on the Wabash cannon ball

and it evidently wan't limited to the circus; viz.,

He was always leaving [home]. The next time it was to beat freight to Chicago; luckily for him the trainmen had hearts, and insted of red-lighting him and his improvised bed - a mere board tied beneath the car - they took the frozen lad into their caboose and landed him penniless in the big city. [of Harry Von Tilzer, from Tin Pan Alley by Isaac Goldberg (1930)]

p.s. - the verb 'to red-light' does appear in OED2, orig. circus or carnival slang, first attested in 1919 Billboard.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tsuwm,

It's a fascinating phrase, isn't it?

Tsuwm, it seems like maybe your quote is more about just kicking someone off the train, but not really about firing him.

What do you think?

yes.

1. trans. To force (a thief, tramp, etc.) out of a moving train (see quot. 1931). Hence fig., to discharge or expel; to dispose of, kill. U.S. slang (orig. Circus).
1919 Billboard 20 Dec. 87/3 The roughnecks found out that I had some money, and that night I was redlighted off the show. 1927 J. TULLY Circus Parade xvi. 254 The light still gleamed in the open door of the car from which we had been red-lighted. 1931 G. IRWIN Amer. Tramp & Underworld Slang 156 Red light, to do away with. The term originated with the..custom of disposing of an undesirable member of a circus or carnival crew by taking him out on a train platform after dark and hurling him off the train... A red light is a danger signal in any case, and on a railroad indicates a full stop. 1932 D. HAMMETT in Amer. Mag. Oct. 96/1 What's the circus and carnival slang term for kicking a guy off a train while it's going? Red-lighting. Sure, that's it—red lights. Who'd you red-light, Ferris? 1941 J. SMILEY Hash House Lingo 46 Redlight, to discharge from a position. 1960 WENTWORTH & FLEXNER Dict. Amer. Slang 424/1 Red-light,..1. To push a person off or out of a moving railroad train... 2. To stop one's automobile and eject a passenger so that he has to walk home under inconvenient or embarrassing circumstances. 1984 Verbatim X. III. 22/1 The circus's jargon is rich and colourful... Redlight, to toss a cheat, thief, or other bad character off a moving train.

2. To signal, warn, or stop by means of a red light. Hence fig., to alarm, alert, or deter. colloq.
1969 in P. Adam-Smith Folklore Austral. Railwaymen 187 Just before we got to the New Town siding, I red-lighted Mick the driver to pull up. 1975 J. GORES Hammett (1976) xiii. 92 I really red-lighted Shuman, and this must have been his idea of a smart way to get back at me.
[OED2 - 1993 Additions Series]

Here's a story that might or might not be true, and if you know that it's nonsense...well, I didn't make it up so don't call me a fibber.

Signal lights on the old-time railways were as follows: RED for STOP. WHITE for GO. One day a lens fell out of a RED light, rendering it WHITE. A train went through and an accident resulted. So....they changed the light system to GREEN for GO. After that, if a lens fell out and produced a WHITE light, the train would not get a false GO signal. I assume we inherited our auto traffic lights from the railway.

Probably a pack of lies...

Interesting, Duncan. I believe somewhere here we had a great discussion on how red and green lights came to be; I'll search for it.

Okay, here it is. The thread goes around and around, but there is a bit in there about why red/green lights developed. One of Arnie's links talks about seeing blue better in the fog, instead of red. Also, we heard from Richard that London was the first to use traffic lights. I don't think that surprises us one bit.

Were they also the first to use Fresnel lenses in lighthouses?

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Also, we heard from Richard that London was the first to use traffic lights. I don't think that surprises us one bit.

I don't recall posting that, but it's true. The first traffic light was in London and was powered by gas. It blew up, killing a policeman and it was many years before "modern" traffic lights appeared. I don't think they were a British invention, but I haven't checked.

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England's first automatic traffic lights could be seen in Princes Square, Wolverhampton in 1927.

There's a picture of the location here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolverhampton

So they were. But nevertheless the modern traffic signals were an American invention - hardly surprising when you consider how many cars were on the roads there by the 1920s. Of course, the USA didn't have that slight interruption to normal service that we experienced from 1914 to 1918

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I don't recall posting that, but it's true.

Richard, just click the site I posted above to refresh your memory.

Ah yes, so I did. Five years ago to the day!