Endangered specie (coinages)

[Laurence Horn]

On Mar 11, 2012, at 2:18 PM, James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at netscape.com> wrote:

> On Sat, 10 Mar 2012 11:08:30 -0600 Larry Sheldon <LarrySheldon at COX.NET> wrote:
>
> <quote>
> Endangered in the traditional sense, and in the sense of "if people
> don't stop saying...."
>
> Terms that bother me, either because they in and of themselves annoying,
> or because the antecedents are disappearing and the coinage actually has
> no meaning, like "clockwise" although that may be making a come-back.
>
> Annoying.
>
> ...</quote>
>
> "clockwise" means "in the direction that the sun's shadow moves on a sundial in the Northern Hemisphere".  So it became what you call an "endangered species" not when digital clocks appeared but when mechanical clocks put sundials out of business.
>
Maybe we can revive "deasil" (and "widdershins" for 'counterclockwise'), since these are indeed defined in terms of the (apparent) direction of the sun in the Northern (resp. Southern) hemisphere, which is unlikely to be rendered obsolete by technological advances.

LH

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