Sunday, March 29, 2009

How we spent our Sunday afternoon...

"Springing Forward" is a pretty big deal in this house. For the American readers, the rest of the world doesn't necessarily change to Daylight Savings Time at all, and most of the countries that do change, don't change at the same time. This throws my family off every time. Perhaps someone should get all of this together, let's just say that working internationally is a pain.

In our daily lives many of the wall clocks, thermometer/barometer things, mobile phones are controlled by radio signals. This means we don't have to do anything to them. Of course the computers are increasingly smart and don't need changed either. But our watches, the microwave, the wall clock with pendulum my father made for me, the alarm clocks... oh my!

This afternoon on the radio the announcer was discussing the time change and how to remember which way the clocks should move. She invoked the English phrase, "Spring forward fall back". Of course then she explained the translation. The word "Spring" is a "friend" in German... it means to jump as well. Fall sounds like "fallen" which has a similar meaning... but I don't know how many Germans would get it if you just casually mentioned it to them.

Now I'm really looking forward to the early-morning commute which means that I get to spend the first two stoplights trying to remember how to change the ##$^#!$ car clock radio.

3 comments:

tqe / Adam said...

Wow... that's a lot. I really have three things to change: My two watches and the clock by my bed. I really need to get a wall clock or something similar that I can see without having to resort finding my watches or handy.

annonamoose said...

There is a German version, without the wordplay. In the Spring the put the furniture out in front of the Italian ice cream parlor and in the fall, they pull it back again. It works, but it's nowhere near as elegant.

Goofball said...

do you really have that many watches to change?????? really