Analog clocks

[Dave Wilton]

Who says analog clocks are going to disappear? Unlike dial telephones
which are inferior to push-button ones, they are clearly a superior
way of displaying time (at least for most common purposes). The
clockface is a great visualization allowing for rapid determination of
relative time differences without conscious mathematical calculations.
The clockface will be with us for a long time to come. (The digital
display is superior when you need to know the precise time, but that's
a relatively rare requirement.)

And the idea that water spirals down the drain in a particular
direction based on which hemisphere you are in is a canard. True the
coriolis force does apply, but it's a very weak force and is
overwhelmed by local conditions like the shape and size of the basin,
whether and how the water is moving when the drain is opened, how the
drain is opened, etc. It's easy to make the water spiral in either
direction if you so choose.



Quoting Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>:

> The left-loose/right-tight sayings are imprecise; they depend on
> perspective: When the top half of a nut (or pipe joint or jar lid)
> is moving leftward, its bottom half is simultaneously going to the
> right! And if a bolt (or pipe end or jar top) is threaded backwards
> (as sometimes happens), the sayings are unhelpful.
>
> Incidentally, in regard to my earlier comment about the direction of
>  water swirl in a sink drain or toilet bowl (in the northern
> hemisphere): I probably got the direction wrong.  Which is the
> point: Who can remember??  A conventional analog clock face, on the
> other hand, is neatly and sequentially NUMBERED.
>
> --Charlie
> ________________________________________________
>
> ---- Original message ----
>> Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 10:54:36 -0500
>> From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject: Re: Analog clocks
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>
>> At 6:55 AM -0800 1/15/07, Ed Keer wrote:
>>> Lefty loosie, righty tightie?
>>
>> Ah, for me it was just "left to loose, right to tight"
>>
>>> watchmesleep.blogspot.com
>>>
>>
>> Or we could go back to _deasil_ and _widdershins_, which at least
>> originally referred to something like "in the direction of the
>> apparent course of the sun" and "in the direction contrary to the
>> apparent course of the sun" respectively.  The way to check if this
>>  is what they *really* mean is to get the sun to rise in the west
>> and set in the east and see if "deasil" and "widdershins" change
>> accordingly--but I suppose we could do the same thing with analog
>> clocks...
>>
>> LH
>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----
>>> From: Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
>>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>> Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2007 9:50:51 AM
>>> Subject: Analog clocks
>>>
>>>
>>> How will the digital generation deal with the highly useful
>>> concept of "clockwise"? It's kind of awkward to say (and think)
>>> "Like the direction water circulates in a toilet bowl in the
>>> northern hemisphere."
>>>
>>> --Charlie
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org