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Reader question: Please explain “worth the candle” in this sentence: “Such temporary measures are not worth the candle to counter a permanent problem.” What candle? My comments: In other words, the measures being proposed are worthless. They’re not worth implementing. Implementing these measures, you see, means work, i.e. energy and effort. And it won’t be worth the energy and effort – hence the analogy “not worth the candle”. Literally, it means any gains to be made from implementing the measures won’t even cover the cost of buying candles to provide the lighting for getting the work done. Metaphorically speaking, of course, because today people no longer use candles for night work. They use electric light bulbs and other smarter lighting systems in modern cities. But one time in history, candles were the mainstay of night life. And we can imagine in those days, candles could be expensive for the poorer families. Evening activities might thus have understandably been kept to a sort of minimum in order to cut the cost on candles. Presumably people from poor families didn’t stay up all night playing poker or other games unless if the game was deemed worth the candle, i.e. really exciting and entertaining. I lived in the countryside for awhile as a child and have fond memories of life in the country. We in those days mostly burned the oil lamp instead of the candle at night. Even if oil lamps are long consigned to history, folks today keep describing some activity or other as “not worth the oil”. That means the same thing – the gains made from getting some job done won’t be enough to buy the oil burnt from the lamp during the process. | 
