black out or brown out?! which is which?!

This may seem very remote, but many years ago, during the wars, all lights were ordered turned off to BLACK OUT the cities so enemy bombers could not have anything to aim at.

I think it's the same, power interruption, power failure hehe. When I was in grade school, my mom told me that brown out is used when there is power failure with in a limtied area like in just one city or one baranggay and powe would be restored after a few hours or even minutes but a blackout means power failure throughout the province or region and power is out for a whole day. That's a total black out.

IN singapore, we will only have one term for it, and that's, Black out ^_^ Regardless of having announcement or not, it will still be blackout.. Because everywhere around us has not no electricty, and no lights, it's darkness all over thus, we term it as, Black out.. It's the perfect term for it ^_^ lol

hey i do not know also..hahahaha just my idea when it is nationwide it is called black out but if it in a limited area it is brown out..that is what i hear mostly in the television..remember when there had been a problem with the electricity due to the jelly fish? they termed it as black out because it had been nationwide

In the absense of no electricity..There's no power coding i think...I think we shouldn't used the color code like brown out or black out. I suggest that will gonna used power out or power failure...hope you find interesting with my opinion..

Actually, "brown out" refers to power failure that occurs during the daytime while "black out" refers to that happening during the night time. That's why black out is total darkness (as in "black") while brown out implies that there is still light due to the sun (hence brown, as in "sepia tone"). Makes sense? That's just a hypothesis. Heheh.

i've heard both,but i noticed "brown out" seemed to used more often when it went down in summer.i tend to use the general blackout more often though.but either is correct.