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Roger Rabbits with |
What runs, but has no legs? Or…runs but never walks. Or…has two hands, a face, but no arms or legs? Figure it for yourself my old Tick-tock.
Corny old riddle-dee-diddles, that have probably been getting dad joke groans for as long as there have been mechanical clocks.
But they’re losing relevance, becoming obsolete. I read recently these brainteasers are being wasted on those who should be falling about and laughing hysterically – the kids.
They don’t get the joke because they increasingly don’t understand big hands and little hands, quarter past and quarter to. And half past. They don’t understand analogue time.
“Why would you, if you don’t have to?” was a fair enough response.
We don’t drive a pony and trap anymore. Unless you’re Pennsylvania Dutch. Or you like A&P shows. Likewise quills and inkwells…sadly.
Leagues are bollocks
What about imperial units and the duodecimal currency system? Miles in a nautical league? Feet in a chain. Crowns in a pound, shillings in a guinea? Stuff we had drilled into us. But, admittedly, seldom, if ever, used.
“Blah!” offered a Young Bright Spark – a YBS. Blah equals baloney. He’s right. Except to make sense of Jules Verne’s novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. A league is 4.8km. And not 20,000 down but rather distance travelled under the sea by the submarine Nautilus. See – it doesn’t have to be common usage to be fascinating.
But YBS has decided leagues are “bollocks”.
I sympathise – because after 57 years of the metric system, I know what 6ft 1in looks like, but not 185.42cm. If the police put out a “dangerous wanted man” bulletin and estimated his height in centimetres I wouldn’t know if they were looking for dwarf or giant.
Revolution has started
Now, a British teachers’ union says students are more used to digital time and don’t know how to read analogue. The world is digital. If it has hands and face, it’s analog, it’s old school, uncool and gobbledygook.
It’s 3:40, not 20 minutes to 4 o’clock anymore, or 20 to 4. Try explaining that when the big hand moves over the hour its ‘past’ something, and beyond the half hour it’s ‘to’ something else.
“The big hand is busy
But the small hand has power
The large one counts minutes,
The little one names hours.”
Who would be inspired to compose a ditty about a digital display?
“Hickory dickory dock,
The mouse ran up the alphanumeric display…”
Anyhow, the UK teachers says schools are swapping out analog clocks for digital displays that count downwards or backwards. The exam room revolution has started.
Back in the exam room, it seems YBSs are gobbling valuable time calculating how much time they have left on the analog clock. It’s causing stress and confusion and could make the difference between a C for a pass, or F for bummed out.
“Well, teach them analog,” screamed the critics. “Isn’t that why they’re at school? To learn stuff?”
Slip this into the curriculum then.
“When both hands
Join at the top
It’s sure to be twelve o’clock,
Whether it’s twelve at noon
Or twelve at night
Depends on if it’s dark or light.”
From high on their horses, the critics suggest schools teach kids useful life lessons like tying shoelaces. Isn’t that why they invented Velcro, loafers and Crocs? So we don’t tangle in shoes laces. Sometimes knowing stuff doesn’t help because it’s been calculated we waste six hours of lifetime each year tying laces.
Impress the ‘deb’
I don’t think kids would thank you for shoe lace lessons. Neither would this old dog. There comes a time when you crink your crack whenever you bend to tie laces. I plead infirmity and park on the stairs to do it.
They could teach kids to drive a manual shift. More fun, and safer. Better control. And it would help when you want to borrow Dad’s race red Mustang Dark Horse with a six-speed manual shift for the school ball. That would impress the debutante more than knowing how to circular waltz.
Without analog how will digitised kids know clockwise from anti-clockwise. When a Reddit bloke told his digital nephew to unscrew wheel nuts ‘anticlockwise’ when changing a wheel, “he didn’t have a clue what I was talking about”. Bloke then took several minutes loosening the nuts nephew had tried to undo clockwise.
If kids can’t read analog, they certainly won’t understand Roman numerals. Been doing the job for 2000 years and still wonderfully symbolic and aesthetic. How else would we ID Queens, Kings, Popes, book chapters and Olympics. How kids? How?
‘Ding bloody dong!’
Without knowing Roman numerals they would ignore Katikati’s main street memorial clock. And wouldn’t take a moment to appreciate the old Post Office clock in Harington St because it’s all X’s, V’s, and I’s. They’d just reach for the phone.
Where’s the sense of history, the charm and romance?
Throw up the scaffolding right now and swap out the eight hands on Big Ben. Stick up four humungous digital displays. Would the Great Bell still chime over Westminster, or would bright red digital displays silently, unceremoniously and soullessly record the passing of time?