A timely thought

[sid]

As the days of analog timepieces fade into history, will the directions "Turn clockwise to tighten" soon lose all meaning?

Will the expression persist, complete with scholarly footnotes and diagrams?

What could possibly replace it?

Any youngsters out there who can give a current status report?

And, just for fun, what other words or phrases can you think of that belong to the past but live on in the present? (It's late, and all I can think of right now is "Hold your horses!")

Comments

[peoppenheimer]

lock, stock, and barrel

[sid]

Good one! I think it was only a few years ago that I actually learned the original meaning behind that.

Here via 3W4DW

[jest]

Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!

Re: Here via 3W4DW

[sid]

Ooh, what does that one mean? Hi! :-)

Also here via 3W4DW

[lurkingcat]

CC doesn't mean what it used to.

(I remember watching my Mum make carbon copies when she was typing things up in the eighties but I haven't seen anyone else do that in decades).

[chalcopyrite]

Prompted by your horse-holding -- "Giving [X] free rein."

I suspect this comment should go here instead of there--whoops

[jjhunter]

I SEE THAT METROPOLIS ICON THERE.

<3

As to your actual question, I know it took years for me to figure out 'a stitch in time' (I kept mistakenly associating it with A Wrinkle In Time), which is one I can imagine fading out of use for certain classes of people as high-end clothes transition to nano- and other seamless material. (Now that I'm independent, of course, I'm only all too aware that yes, a stitch in time does save nine, so grab those threads and needles stat.)

Some other ones...(cheats and looks at Wikipedia to get the exact phrasings); as is with the one above, there certain assumptions re: culture and privilege in terms of whether the saying in question still might have some experiential teeth.

• Take it with a grain of salt.
• All frills and no knickers.
• Born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
• A candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long
• To burn the candle at both ends.
• Don't have too many irons in the fire.
• Strike while the iron is hot.
• Never look a gift horse in the mouth.
• Don't put the cart before the horse.
• Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. [BOMBS AWAY!]
• For want of a nail the shoe is lost, for want of a shoe the horse is lost, for want of a horse the rider is lost.
• Good wine needs no bush. [Thank you As You Like It]
• Not enough room to swing a cat [one hopes this is anachronistic]
• There's more than one way to skin a cat. [as mentioned previously...]

[princessofgeeks]

dialing a phone, dial tone

typing. my kids learn keyboarding, which is.... wrong.

[cxcvi]

And along with that, the reasons of why we have the QWERTY layout will also probably be lost. The layout itself, however, will probably remain, unless someone really successful does something about it with the default layout of one of their products...

[princessofgeeks]

yeah, like the metric system, i fear the dvorak keyboard is a logical wonderful thing that the USA will never embrace. which is SO WEIRD.

[cxcvi]

Both of those things, though, take both time and energy to learn. Something that not all of us have in plentiful supply...

[princessofgeeks]

oh, certainly. but i am old enough to remember when we ALMOST went metric in the seventies. so close and yet so far....

i'll never learn dvorak now; it's too late for me. but if the whole country decided to teach fourth graders dvorak only? in a generation it would be done.

[codeman38]

I've already seen that one folk-etymologized into "free reign" on several occasions. (And the misinterpretation makes just as much sense, honestly!)

(here via trouble)

[jazzfish]

I've been waiting for analog clocks to fade into history since I read that line in Hitchhiker's Guide about how earthlings "still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea." No sign of it happening anytime soon: the low-end ones are cheaper than digital clocks, and the high-end ones are classier than any digital clock you can think of.

One 'phrase' that's teetering on the brink of irrelevance: "YOU SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND BABY RIGHT ROUND, LIKE A... wtf is a record anyway?"

[codeman38]

On the "dial" note... I remember seeing some badly translated instructions once-- can't remember specifically what for, but it was some sort of electronic device made in China-- where the term "stir" was used to refer to dialing a number. (Google confirms the commonness of this mistranslation.) Thing is, that actually makes perfect sense when you think about the context of an old-fashioned phone dial-- and yet, it just sounds so weird.

Re: Also here via 3W4DW

[shiyiya]

My elementary school had a bunch of carbon paper that I suspect had been discarded from someone's office at the after school club! This would be in the late nineties. It was FASCINATING :P

[chalcopyrite]

I have only rarely seen it correctly. Still bugs me. *wry g*

sid, another one for you: having a "nest egg." :)

Heh.

[onyxlynx]

Speaking of which, what will replace the ancient riposte to the verbose: "Were you vaccinated with a phonograph needle?"

(The sheer number of explanatory footnotes for any Stephen King novel will be epic!)

There was apparently a major push for analog because it was felt (presumably by the usual cabal of conservatives) that digital was just too exact. (I own a pocket watch now (analog with Roman numerals) for when I can't use the phone--and there's another--and got into the digital conversation. Also the clockwise and the Roman numeral conversation, because people apparently only see those in movie copyright notices. Ha.) Hmmm. Just realized that the phrase "My hat's off to you!" is ineffective when almost no one neither Hasidic nor Amish actually wears a hat anymore.

Re: Also here via 3W4DW

[sid]

As far as I know, CC is still the standard. But I've noticed that when my attorney copies me on something there is only one C! Maybe that old usage is being questioned now.

I probably have made carbon copies (using loose sheets of carbon paper) somewhere in my past. *g* Who can remember back that far? I know I typed a lot of 3-part forms. Some had carbon layers between and some made carbonless copies.

Hi!

[sid]

Whoa! :-D

Re: I suspect this comment should go here instead of there--whoops

[sid]

I've never heard 'good wine needs no bush', but now that I've looked it up I like it!

Candles, irons, most anything to do with horses. Lots of good ones!

[sid]

Even hanging up isn't the same!

I think they called it 'keyboard skills' when my nephew was taking it in school. My typing class had more manual than electric typewriters, so we had to switch around throughout the semester to give everyone a chance at the electrics!

[sid]

I never could grasp metric, so I was relieved when that plan fell apart. Stubborn!America iz stubborn.

[sid]

Yeah, it's pretty much the same motion at a slightly different angle! Unless you're a person who normally stirs things counter-clockwise - that would not transfer well to dialing a number! :-D

And speaking of problems dialing numbers, I remember the first time I used a phone. I was probably about six years old, calling my father to pick me up from a schoolmate's birthday party. I don't remember if I had trouble figuring out which way to turn the dial. I did succeed in dialing my number, though.

And then I picked up the handset. *g*

Oops? Let's try that again. :-D

[chalcopyrite]

Oh, you nay-sayer. *g*

(Hi, by the way. Great discussion/trivia topic!)