Can sheared surfaces emit light?

We apply a new formalism to calculating emission of light from sheared dielectric surfaces. When the surfaces are smooth, the emission of light requires extreme velocities, but introducing surface roughness with short-period components reduces the extreme demands on Velocity so that, for atomic-scale roughness, shear Velocities as small as 10(4) ms(-1) will result in light emission. Some order-of-magnitude estimates are given.