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potent | 10:26 Tue 10th Jul 2001 | Phrases & Sayings
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Inevitably, sometime in the future, indicators of time will all be digital and familiarity with the 'short hand tells the hour and the long hand tells the minutes' will disappear. Consequently the words 'clockwise' and 'counter-clockwise' (or 'anti-clockwise') will be ancient English. What then is likely to replace them?
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There's every chance that the phrases will remain in use even if the traditional clock disappeares. We stll 'dial' a number on a phone, after all, when most of us won't have used a phone wilth a dial for years.
And, (in the Northern Hemisphere) the shadow of the sun on a sundial will still go round clockwise.
There's no reason why 'clockwise/counter-clockwise' should disappear, as many current phrases and terms have their origins in activities and objects we no longer use that most of us know little or nothing about. Does Potent have any thoughts on what - if anything - will replace them? Anyway it's not a certainty that ALL clocks will be digital (or anything else as yet unthought of) as there may continue to be a fashion for clocks and watches with dials, and there are all those old public clocks on churches and suchlike. Are they all to be replaced? Many people prefer the old style of clock, and not just old f***s like me.
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Thanks to those who answered but I really don't find their answers satisfactory. I'm 76 so have been thru the years of dialling telephones but doubt I ever used the expression "to dial someone up" (sure I have been told to wipe the smile off my dial).Clocks on the towers of all those old buildings? Surely the ones that remain have stopped (Still stands the clock at ten to three?)
and rarely are seen by the young just as they are unlikely to see sundials.

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