{"id":1601,"date":"2021-11-14T20:20:38","date_gmt":"2021-11-15T01:20:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/?p=1601"},"modified":"2021-11-14T20:23:05","modified_gmt":"2021-11-15T01:23:05","slug":"word-of-the-week-horological","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/2021\/11\/14\/word-of-the-week-horological\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Week! Horological"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Hamilton<\/a>Robyn Bradshaw, of UR Catering, wrote to ask me if I thought that COVID-19 might be the “Horological Torpedo of our time.” That’s a reference to Confederate John Maxwell’s timed explosive used against Union shipping just down the river from us at City Point<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I don’t know how to answer Robyn’s question, as I’m not an epidemiologist.\u00a0 Out of an abundance of caution yes, I’ve gotten my COVID booster to dodge that particular torpedo. I can, however, hazard a few words about the adjective, as I collect the occasional automatic (self-winding) wrist watch.\u00a0 I’m also obsessed by metaphors and quotations related to time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Horology is the science of time, its study and measurement, to be precise as, say, a Hag-Heuer watch. Wikipedia’s entry<\/a> discusses the Greek etymology of the term as well as its history as a science. We take time-keeping for granted, save when we must reset our clocks (our phones self-correct) for daylight-savings time. Phones themselves have replaced watches for many folks I know, of any age. I prefer a watch, as it’s one form of male bling that does not look ridiculous.<\/p>\n

Horologists might study time, but I’ve heard the term used to refer to watch-makers as well as collectors, though an interesting discussion online<\/a> includes the awkward, even lewd, sounding horophile<\/em> as the proper term for watch-and-clock fanciers.\u00a0 What gentle and, yes, time-consuming fun to argue about words in that manner!<\/p>\n

Spend some time searching the byways and highways of your reading for interesting words and metaphors and send them to me by e-mail (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below.<\/p>\n

See all of our Metaphors of the Month\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and Words of the Week\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Image of Hamilton Khaki Automatic Watch ruthlessly stolen from a site selling them. It’s an excellent and reasonably priced watch, one of the first nice watches I ever bought.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robyn Bradshaw, of UR Catering, wrote to ask me if I thought that COVID-19 might be the “Horological Torpedo of our time.” That’s a reference to Confederate John Maxwell’s timed explosive used against Union shipping just down the river from us at City Point. I don’t know how to answer Robyn’s question, as I’m not … Continue reading Word of the Week! Horological<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6904,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2516,87405,40197],"tags":[2522],"class_list":["post-1601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-writing","category-etymology","category-vocabulary","tag-word-of-the-week"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6904"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1601"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1604,"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1601\/revisions\/1604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}