ETYMOLOGY

Clock vs. watch

Has it ever occurred to you why we have two different names for a product that has the same functionality and employs the same mechanism to accomplish that? The only difference lies in the scope of action of the two: you can carry a watch along with you while a clock stays at your home. It’s like having a completely different name for your pocket size dictionary, and it’s not even a brand name. But we are so used to it that we never got to pause for a moment and think about why we have been doing what we were told to do all along.

Let’s start from the times when it wasn’t compulsory for the bride’s family to gift the bridegroom a watch on the wedding day: 11th Century. That was when the first clock with gears was invented and the credit goes to the Arab engineer Ibn Khalaf al-Muradi. Although there were time-keeping devices before Muradi’s clock, none of them employed gears and worked through water - and later mercury - escapement mechanisms. Muradi’s clock, however, was not the first time a gear was used in a mechanical device; the Greeks were already using gears for more than a thousand years.

Archimedes, for instance, is believed to have invented the world’s first mechanical computer through gears. (And yes, this proves that Archimedes was not only famous for running around naked in streets shouting “Eureka”, at least to his peers.) The device, now known as Antikythera (experts named it after the Greek island where it was discovered in 1900) used to accurately predict astronomical positions and eclipses, as well as the Olymiads - the 4-year calendar epochs which was effectively the time between two Olympic Games.

The famous Muslim polymath Al-Jazari also created a detailed clock and mentioned it in his Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices in 1206. In addition to keeping time, Al-Jazari’s clock had other features too, like showing the paths of the celestial bodies and opening a small door to display mannequins each hour.

The word “clock” came from the Medieval Latin word for “bell”: clocca. Interestingly, the French word for “bell” is still cloche. The word for bell got associated with clock due to the fact that early clock towers simply used bells to inform the people of the hour.

During the colonial era, the clock towers became distinguishing symbol of the colonial architecture; many can still be found in big cities of Pakistan that had British influence.

Watchmaking, however, started much later in time. While clocks were already there, the idea of making them portable only arrived to the Germans in the late 15th Century. The first watch was invented by Nuremberg clockmaker Peter Henlein (1485-1542) and it was to be worn as a pendent. Peter was soon followed by other watchmakers and an industry began. The early ‘clock-watches’ came with a chain. These were cylindrical devices, much bigger and heavier than today’s watches and were often engraved or ornamented. With time, the shape evolved and became spherical, and came to be known as ‘Nuremberg Eggs’. Watches in those times were poor at timekeeping, needed to be wound at least twice a day, and cost a fortune. They were more of a status symbol back then, with very less utility, if any. So, in a sense, those timepieces were ‘useless boxes’ which people looked at with admiration since they cost a lot.

Over the centuries the watchmaking industry flourished and watches finally got the shape they have today. And then came smartwatches and our lives became easier. The word “watch” came from the old English word wacche which had two meanings: 1) to stay awake and 2) shift in a guard’s duty. Perhaps the ‘time on-the-go’ feature in the new timepieces led the people to call it something that amounted finally to keeping a constant look, just like guard does (or is supposed to do at least). And that is how the minimal change in utility resulted in a totally different name for a product that functions essentially the same way as the previous one did.