#pull chain

Chain shifts are a series of interrelated vowel movements (regarding the pronunciation).

‘Interrelated’ means that a vowel moves because another vowel moves (-> causal relationship). This usually happens to vowels that are adjacent to each other in the vowel system.

There are two types of chain shift:

1. Push chains:

In push chains, vowel A moves into the direction of vowel B. As a consequence, vowel B moves out of the way. 

The (not universally accepted) explanation for this is that linguistic systems try to avoid homophony (= two sounds being identical), i.e. maintenance of contrast.

2. Pull chains:

In pull chains, vowel A moves away from its previous position. As a consequence, an adjacent vowel B moves into the position that was previously occupied by A. 

The pull chain on the ceiling fan activates the switch in the fan assembly. Some fans have a switch that only turns the fan on or off, but other fans have a switch that can supply power to the fan at three different speeds. Before the loop reaches the stopping point, every time the chain is pulled, the speed of the fan will increase or decrease by one level. Follow the same steps to replace any type of switch. Because the switch is not universal, you must remove the defective switch before looking for replacement parts before proceeding.

What do you do when you find that the pull chain on the ceiling fan light is stuck?Call a maintenance person or ask a friend for help? No need at all, because it is easy to replace the pull chain. Follow the steps below and you will quickly learn how to replace the pull chain, and then you can replace the damaged pull chain at any time without worrying about the pull chain being jammed at home.

The bathroom light in my apartment has a pull cord, and flailing around in the dark space trying to find the string got old reeeally fast. So I got some tiny eye-hooks, a big wooden bead, and a longer string and rigged it up so that the pull cord ends in a bead on the doorframe, like a weird light switch. The bead is big enough that it can be caught and tugged with an elbow or back of the hand if hands are full.

Photo above: there’s an eye-hook at the end of the cord, right above the bead, so that the “switch” is always in the same spot. Below, a diagram of before (red) and after (green). There’s an eye-hook where the wall and ceiling meet, pulling the cord over to the wall above the doorframe, and the other eye-hook as shown in the photo above.