Eliminated? Illuminated!

This is kind of an embarrassing confession. For the longest time, I had thought that the head of the flight attendants said, “The captain has eliminated the fasten-seatbelt sign.” I could not understand why turning on the fasten-seatbelt sign or the exit lights was called elimination, and I just took it to be airline lingo and left my mental confusion at that.

This past Friday, on my trip to New York, it suddenly dawned on me that the word was illuminated! Of course, that word has been in my vocabulary; it just didn’t register. Now my confusion is eliminated, and the proverbial light bulb over my head has been turned on and I am illuminated.