Everything2
Near Matches
Ignore Exact
Full Text
Everything2

Complicated

created by betsy

(idea) by smartalix (1.7 hr) (print)   ?   (I like it!) Sun Apr 06 2003 at 17:28:09

The term complicated comes from watch nomenclature. Each function of a watch is called a complication, so a watch with hours, minutes and seconds would have three complications, a watch with that plus day, date, and phase of the moon would have six, and so on. A watch is usually referred to as complicated if it has more than the three basic functions.

Since watches were (and in many cases, still are) the most complex devices the average person comes in contact with, the term came to mean any complex device or situation.

This is not the only example of watches influencing language. Since they were the first miniaturized mechanical devices, other small mechanisms were often described as "watchworks" or "clockworks". Another word inspired by the watch is the use of the word "caliber" to designate quality (it refers to the size of the movement.)


printable version
chaos

Wet T-shirts and hot summers: a fifteen year old's definition of love Avril Lavigne Yves Lavigne Clockwork
paedopop Wristwatch Wombats in light speed experiments Alanis Morissette
Breitling It's All Been Done Before Rolex models first impressions don't always count
Orrery Magnum catchy Rock Steady
Your radical ideas about philosophy have already occurred to others Glockenspiel am Rathausturm Munich Antikythera mechanism Dipping your hand into molten lead
Complicate E2 HTML tags : Quick Start Dream Log: September 8, 2004 cunning
Y'know, if you log in, you can write something here, or contact authors directly on the site. Create a New User if you don't already have an account.
  Epicenter
Login
Password

password reminder
register

Everything2 Help

Cool Staff Picks
Little presents from the Node Fairy:
The doctors are confident the pills will always win
laughter
Supergirl
telephone
Life grit homespun art
E2 Chatterbox Archive
Teach Yourself Scheme
Why the willow weeps
Standing on a mountaintop in northern Siberia under the rapidly descending bulk of asteroid McAlmont, with a calculating expression and a baseball bat
What happens when we die?
Falling in love with your best friend
test5
Alcoholism
New Writeups
Augustine
Vanya on 42nd Street(review)
tentative
Chances Not Taken(idea)
Heitah
Why I love Everything2(person)
trixingee
Dungeon Mastering for the first time(idea)
Netrat0
It's Called Subtext, Honey(person)
eyeofthebeholder
The Dragon(idea)
Heitah
consist, comprise, constitute, or compose(idea)
Meezzio
Gotlandssnus(thing)
argv
Astral Plane(idea)
Madara
One Winged Angel(fiction)
Tom Rook
Talk is cheap(poetry)
shaogo
Adelle Davis(person)
Aerobe
race car g sfjsgsd(poetry)
Binah
Dream Log: July 5, 2008(dream)
StrawberryFrog
Forgotten things in space(idea)
This page courtesy of The Everything Development Company