amateur of the day: anti-clockwise (and counter-clockwise)

[Spanbock/Svoboda-Spanbock]

They've seen NXNW (although I'm trying to remember a scene with a
clock?) and they can use an analog clock, but, it just isn't automatic
for them the way it is for us older folks.

They don't wear watches because they have cell phones. The only clock
in our house that is analog is the one in the kitchen, where there is
a digital clock on the stove as well.

Funny, isn't it?

Kate Svoboda-Spanbock


On Aug 27, 2011, at 2:06 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: amateur of the day: anti-clockwise (and counter-
> clockwise)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 8/27/2011 04:28 PM, Spanbock/Svoboda-Spanbock wrote:
>> My kids - in their teens - don't get it when they ask what time it is
>> and I answer "quarter to..."  Their preference for the digital clock
>> is so strong that they have no visual reference for it.
>
> Have they never been inside -- or for that matter at the south, 42nd
> Street, outside of -- Grand Central Terminal?  Or boarded a train at
> King's Cross station?  Or seen "North by Northwest"?  They must have
> seen "Superman".  Or passed the corner of Massachusetts and Park
> Avenues in Arlington Heights, Massachusetts, where the four-faced
> analog clock is once again showing the correct time?
> http://www.panoramio.com/photo/9595676
>
> Joel
>
>
>> On the other hand, they were preparing to go somewhere with a friend
>> their age, and the friend said, "Hey, we better get going. It's
>> almost
>> fifty." Took me a moment to figure out that she meant 00:50, which
>> the
>> adults in the family would have called "ten of..." or "ten to..."
>
> I would have taken longer than a moment.
>
> Joel
>
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