#4122 - 09/19/00 02:01 AM
Re: time
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old hand
Registered: 03/15/00
Posts: 1010
Loc: Switzerland
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>time will resume its daily course around your watch..<
Very recently I discussed about the timeless subject of time with a physicist colleague, and he thought that this cyclic (or periodic) aspect was part of the very definition of time. But I objected that there are the various phenomena of monotonous decay (aging, radioactivity..) which also unambiguously mark the arrow of time.
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#4123 - 09/19/00 06:58 AM
Re: time
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addict
Registered: 03/17/00
Posts: 460
Loc: Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
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With the introduction of digital watches, I sometimes wonder if 'clockwise' is about to become a 'lost word'.
My wristwatch (with dial) was a Christmas present from my wife in 1962 and still works perfectly -- no batteries, no winding, no obsolescence!
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#4125 - 09/20/00 05:17 AM
Re: time
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addict
Registered: 06/27/00
Posts: 444
Loc: Sydney Australia
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>I sometimes wonder if 'clockwise' is about to become a 'lost word'< Let's join forces to keep 'clockwise' in existence, but replace 'anticlockwise' with the much more wonderful (and possibly more venerable - WAY too lazy to go and look it up!) 'widdershins'! 
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#4126 - 09/20/00 10:54 AM
Re: time
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 03/15/00
Posts: 11580
Loc: Louisville, Kentucky
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'anticlockwise'!? I've never heard that! We say counterclockwise! And 'widdershins'?? Gosh, Bridget, that sounds like you live in Australia or something! 
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#4127 - 09/21/00 04:41 AM
Re: widdershins
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addict
Registered: 03/17/00
Posts: 460
Loc: Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
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My friend Brewer tells that
… witches and warlocks were supposed to approach the Devil withershins [or widdershins, from OE wither=against]. The opposite of withershins is 'deasil' meaning righthandwise or sunwise [from Gaelic].
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#4128 - 09/21/00 11:57 AM
Re: tenses
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Pooh-Bah
Registered: 08/23/00
Posts: 2204
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Is a true adjective a word that cannot be used as a verb? A "red" apple; a "blue" sky. Are true adjectives words that cannot be used as verbs?In my younger days, the weekly wash was "blued;" i.e., blue powder was put into the water to make the laundry look whiter when it emerged. I think some modern washing powders use a similar technique. Also, when all of your money had been spent, particularly on riotous living, one was said to have "blued" it. Not sure of the etymology of that one, though. Perhaps a corruption of "blown", as in "blown away" And the verbal noun is the gerund, the verbal adjective the gerundive, I believe. ( I gleaned that from either Fowler or Partridge, almost certainly, says he, religiously acknowledging his sources
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#4129 - 09/22/00 03:36 PM
Re: widdershins
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addict
Registered: 06/27/00
Posts: 444
Loc: Sydney Australia
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>witches and warlocks were supposed to approach the Devil withershins [or widdershins, from OE wither=against]. <
It is also quite unacceptable to go round a Tibetan Buddhist temple or religious site withershins. (I'll take either spelling!)
paulb, thank you for introducing me to deasil! WIthout the explanation I would have thought this something not particularly attractive - strong association with weasel - but how wrong I would have been. What a great word.
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#4130 - 09/26/00 01:27 PM
Re: widdershins
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 09/15/00
Posts: 4757
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I got taken to a site at anna's suggestion in another string, which for anyone who didn't LIU, also contained the following joke more relevant to this topic: JOYS OF CONJUGATION A businessman arriving in Boston for a convention found that his first evening was free, and he decided to go find a good seafood restaurant that served Scrod, a Massachussetts specialty. Getting into a taxi, he asked the cab driver, "Do you know where I can get Scrod around here?" "Sure," said the cabdriver. "I know a few places... but I can tell you it's not often I hear someone use the third-person pluperfect indicative anymore!"
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