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

[alltoseek]

Ha ha - now you get more new comments to this old post! :D

I was just thinking about the 'gift horse' one yesterday, but someone already mentioned it.

All those nauticalisms - so many I didn't even know they were nauticalisms! So they are already obsolete but persistent:

*Don't sweat the small stuff
*The devil to pay and no pitch hot
*Between the devil and the deep blue sea
*The bitter end

I'm sure there's lots more; that's just top of head.

For clockwise: You know, I filled the house with analog clocks just to make sure my kids would learn to tell time on analog as well as digital (didn't have to worry too much, the school still teaches time-telling on analog).

But clockwise and counter-clockwise will still persist in anything that turns, like screws and jar lids. I can't see us replacing the term; I bet we'll continue to say clockwise, even if the term gets corrupted and shortened along the way.

Also bet we hang onto analog displays, even if they are driven digitally! :D

[sid]

Would you believe my schooling never included being taught to tell time? All of a sudden one day we're given a standardized test to take, and several of the questions involved reading the face of a clock. I just had to guess...and I obviously guessed wrong, because the teacher called my mother and said, "She doesn't know how to tell time!"

Mom had just assumed they would teach me. You would think!