Hot take: my 8 year old nephew just schooled me on wire colors

I was helping my sister rewire a ceiling fan in her place in Phoenix last weekend, and her kid was watching. He pointed at a red wire and asked if it was 'the angry one' because red means hot. Then he said the white one must be 'the calm one' for neutral. I've been doing this 12 years and never thought of it like that. Now I can't unsee it every time I open a junction box. Anyone else have a simple thing that just clicked after a weird comment?

3 comments

3 Comments

danieljenkins19d ago

It's a cute way to remember it, but it's just wire colors, not a personality test.

hugo3719d ago

You said it's just wire colors, but that's missing the point. The colors are a visual system for organizing complex information. It's not about the wires having a personality, it's about using color to make a technical process easier to remember and follow. Calling it a personality test is a funny way to dismiss it, but the method has a real function. It turns a boring list of steps into a pattern you can see at a glance. That's the whole reason the color code trick works so well for people.

wyatt_fox682d agoMost Upvoted

Yeah but if it's just wire colors, why does the trick work so well for so many people? Hugo37 had a point about it turning steps into a visual pattern you can see. Isn't that the whole goal, to make a hard task easier to remember, even if the method seems silly?