asleep at the switch en · ADJ
Pronunciation
- (Australia) audio
Etymology
Probably an allusion to the important responsibilities of a railway switchman.
Meanings
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(idiomatic) Neglectful of an important task, responsibility, or opportunity.
Why America (but not Canada) failed to set up a needed synfuels industry.
2003 October 13, Donald Bartlett, James Steele, “Asleep at the Switch”, in Time, archived from the original on 20 Jan 2011:His vote demonstrates that the people of Philadelphia are not asleep at the switch, are not indifferent to their political duties.
1909, Clinton Rogers Woodruff, “Municipal Review 1907-1908,”, in The American Journal of Sociology, volume 14, number 4, page 488:My guardian angel had not been asleep at the switch.
1934 October 5, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter X, in Right Ho, Jeeves, London: Herbert Jenkins […], →OCLC:It is sometimes difficult to guess whether a sentence has been garbled by the author or the typesetter […] . In either case, the editors were asleep at the switch.
1974 November 15, S. D. Isard, “Review of Computer Models of Thought and Language”, in Science, volume 186, number 4164, page 625:“We all were asleep at the switch as the Chinese government decided to prioritise these clean energy technologies as a matter of national industrial strategy,” says Geoffrey Pyatt, a former US assistant secretary of energy and diplomat now at the advisory firm McLarty Associates.
2026 January 13, Rachel Millard, Alice Hancock, Nic Fildes, quoting Geoffrey Pyatt, “How the west fell behind in green tech”, in Financial Times, Big Read, page 15: