Annoying Sayings Number One

“A stopped clock [analogue] is right twice a day” is a saying that is supposed indicate that even ineffective things can be right sometimes. The phrase is also used to indicate that (in a ‘humorous’ way) a stopped clock is ‘better’ than a slow (or fast) clock - which is never tells the correct time.

Leaving aside that, we don’t always need clocks to be absolutely right and a stopped clock may be right twice a day, but it is useless because we don’t know when the stopped clock will be right. Unless we carry a second timepiece of ‘known tardiness’.

I have further issues with stopped clocks.

What’s the time Mr Wolf

When we say it is ‘five o’clock’ how long does that blissful state of five o’clockness last for: one minute, one second, or has ‘the time’ no length at all. Is ‘five o’clock’ the division between the time before five o’clock and the time after five o’clock. If the last option is true, one can never say ‘now’ and be sure that the time is accurately five o’clock.

No matter how accurate a clock claims to be, it cannot ‘sit’ on the infinitely thin division between the past and the future all the time. Indeed as ‘five o’clock’ has no ‘length’, the length of time a (twice correct) stopped clock is correct for adds up to ‘zero seconds’.

I can imagine a clock that is very accurate and is designed to oscillate (slowing down and speeding up) so that it crosses the ‘real time’ again and again. But perhaps that is cheating.

And all this discussion ignores the issue that there are several different times including GMT and UTC based on the sun, the galaxy and atomic oscillation.

Did you expect a conclusion?

I have a program on my desktop that reports the time in five minute chunks e.g. Ten to five, five to five and then five o’clock. This clock is correct twelve times an hour. But, of course, I don’t know when those twelve correct ‘moments’ are. Happily, I don’t mind.

I make no claim to be an expert in the English Language, but the following usage annoys me.

“It is only a quick question.”

‘Only’ when used as an adverb is attempt at justfy the speaker’s point of view. Furthermore its deployment doesn’t add anything to the meaning of the sentence. Besides, the question maybe quick, but the answer will be long.

“I just want my laptop’s screen to stop flickering.”

This is an attempt by the speaker to claim, without knowledge of the topic (othwise he/she would have mentioned it), that a fix for the problem should be easy.