is "Lighting the spark for XYZ" a meaningful phrase in english? [closed]

Solution 1:

Hello SAFEX welcome to EL&U. I looked for examples of "light a spark" online and found a few, although I couldn't find a definition of it as an idiom. Similarly I tried "Set a spark" which seemed more natural to me as a spark is a transitory thing which is used to light something else. This returned a similar number.

I then ran a Google Ngram to find the relative frequency of the two expressions in many books and got this result. The ngram shows that both expressions exist but "light a spark" has, since about 1960, become nore common than "set a spark".

Looking at the German I see that the phrase ends in "lassen" so personally I would read the phrase more as "lay the spark". I added this to the Ngram and found that this is very uncommon so I wouldn't use it. However for me "set the spark" seems to be closer to the German original as it carries connotations of applying a spark to a powder trail or a fuse to trigger an explosion.

As an aside how about using a capital letter for "Spark" or even using the acronym "SPARK" in the title to emphasise the dual meaning of the word in the context of the article?

Solution 2:

This answer contains opinion.

A concise solution, I believe, would be "spark up" as in "Spark Up Big Data In Economics".

One, this directly prompts (commands) your audience to get active, i.e. to use your tool, which the more impersonal "Lighting/Setting the spark" doesn't do.

And two, this dominant effect contrasts somewhat amusingly against the background of the phrase's other meaning of 'lighting up a smoke' which, importantly, does stay in the background and may even remain unnoticed by some.