Totally Black...

Because if you're looking at a city from the air (at night) the blocks/section without power ARE blacked out. I think it was first widely used during a big power outage in the 1960s, in the Northeast USA. , the first big one at night, at a time when satellite weather photos were becoming commonplace. This phrase became accepted, and then the brown-out phrase was developed from it to denote an area where they reduced the voltage. That is not a literal phrase like the first one, though.

Black out or brown out,all power cuts are the same to me!ive recently taken to switching all goods on stand by off as I think im buying shares in the National grid when the power bill comes in!but apart from that the main worry is is the power goes out...where are the candles????now they are always kept on the right hand side of the sink unit,in the worn out wicker waste bin,but as I feel into the bin,I can olny find stumps of wax left!!..makes mental note,to stock up on the candles on the next visit to the supermarket.

hope shes not going to ask you for commission for posting her question here! lol

Hi diutay, Is she for real? during the war at night people had to put black curtains on the windows and lights out and that is why it is called a blackout and also everytime thereis a power cut,its always seems to but ar night when we need the light, no such brown night its always been called black as night, because as you say its totally black. Tamara

Black out is the lack of illumination caused by electrical power failure. Blackout is a term which may be used in various other aspects too. At the end of a scene in a theater, the drop of the screen with all the lights off is also called blackout. Blackout is also a phase of temporary loss of memory or consciousness in medical terms. But in your discussion it is the first one where there is a sudden collapse of electric supply leading to a temporary darkness. The term might have evolved from the act of concealment or extinguishment of lights that might be visible to the enemy aircrafts while raiding from the air. It is the appearance of the earth(dark or black) from air due to lack of illuminations. Brownout is the reduction of electric power supply specially due to shortage of electricity either due to mechanical failure or due to excessive use by the consumers. In medical terms, brownout is used to means dimmming of the vision caused by loss of blood pressure or hypoxia. The term grey out is also used sometimes to say this problem of vision.