Perfectly understood words with obsolete etymologies

If they don't understand CC, how are they ever going to grok BCC:  I remember programmer/analysts asking whatb BCC meant, back when infoplex was a synonym for email.

If you were communicating by text to an alien living in a remote galaxy. how would you define clockwise or counterclockwise?  Or, for that matter, right and left?  You could define east and west in terms of spinward/anti-spinward.  Chemists have a similar problem distinguishing between the enantiomers of a racemic mixture.  In a number of cases, a synthetic compound is racemic, but a biological one is not, and the synthetic is only 50% as effective.

Do announcers still say "don't touch that dial"?

Over twenty years ago, I came up with two examples of common expressions that I figured would be obsolete in a hundred years (eighty more to go!). One was clockwise, because I figured all clocks would be digital by that time. The other was anything involving pennies (penny for your thoughts, my two cents worth, not a red cent) because I assumed there would eventually be no amounts that differed by anything under a nickel.

Ron Draney said
 I assumed there would eventually be no amounts that differed by anything under a nickel.

On the news last night, they said that 40% of all purchases use currency.  I'd be very happy to see an end to pennies, especially as they cost about 3c to make, and nickles could disappear, too. Sales tax is a factor, but if your purchase is 4.88 plus 21c sales tax, you could pay the $5.09 with check or card, and the store could round up to the next dime with few people complaining.  Last time I was in a ldollar store, everything was actually 96c plus 4c tax, or something like that, so they didn't have to deal with coins at all.

Seems to me that instead of coining pennies, we could coin $1000 coins, and use them to pay off treasury notes and bonds as they mature.  We wouldn't be paying interest on the national debt that way, and economists say the "quantitative easing" effect is beneficial to the economy is beneficial, if it's done with restraint.  There's not much difference between that and borrowing the fiat money of the federal reserve.  In either case, the feds consume goods and services, and the others who need those things bid higher to get their hands on what remains.  Gotta be better than having furriners buying up everything we own.

On the topic of "clockwise" and "counterclockwise" there's two comments I want to respond to ...

Ron Draney said: Over twenty years ago, I came up with two examples of common expressions that I figured would be obsolete in a hundred years (eighty more to go!). One was clockwise, because I figured all clocks would be digital by that time.  

I thought the same thing, when I bought my first digital watch in the 80s. There's been a few threads on this forum about whether "clockwise" and "counterclockwise" would ever truly lose their meanings. You can get a widget for your desktop or smart phone that replaces the default digital display with something that looks and acts like an analog clock. In fact, you can buy (internally) digital watches that show the old analog display of rotating hands, but in pixels. I haven't seen many of those pseudo-analog devices in use though. I believe the consensus in all those other threads was that, as long as there were large analog clocks on city halls, church towers, monuments, etc., people would continue to understand the meaning of "clockwise" and "counterclockwise". I can't imagine Big Ben ever being swapped out for a digital display.

deaconB asked: If you were communicating by text to an alien living in a remote galaxy. how would you define clockwise or counterclockwise?  Or, for that matter, right and left?

Now that is a truly fascinating question I've pondered on many occasions. I'm a huge supporter of the SETI project, and interested in an obscure field of research called "anti-cryptography" (communicating in a way that enhances deciphering by a foreign intelligence). Disclaimer: I do believe there is other intelligent life somewhere in our galaxy. I do not believe we have been visited by them. Nor are we likely to be. That's a debate for a different forum ... just wanted to let you know where I was coming from.

Any conversation we have with an extraterrestrial civilization will be via radio waves (or, equivalently, laser light). This would not be an ordinary "conversation" since a question would take 4 years to reach just the nearest star. If they replied immediately, their answer would take another 4 years to return. So whatever the content of the message, it needs to be recognizable, decipherable, and have carefully selected clues to build a basis of communication (more about that below).

The answer to the question deaconB asked is a resounding YES. This specific problem (CW vs. CCW and L vs. R), is very important for scientific communication. And it was solved for us by the laws of physics. Here's the stages through which SETI experts expect communication to unfold:

1. Any communication with an extraterrestrial intelligence will begin with mathematics, using ideas that can be sent and received as a string of bits. For example, the universal constant pi (circumference/diameter ratio of a circle). Any such string of bits would be instantly recognized by a technologically advanced civilization. I believe SETI currently filters signals they receive in every base from binary to base 1000 (citation needed).
2. Once we establish a common mathematical base, we move to "graphics". The Arecibo Project was the first such attempt. By sending a string that was 1679 bits long, we sent a clue to decoding it (anti-cryptography). 1679 is the product of two prime numbers (23 x 73). If you arrange the bits into a 23 x 73 grid, it forms a crude image that conveys visual information. Follow that link and you'll see what the "picture" looked like.
3. Once graphic communication has been established, we can move into realm of geometry. The laws of geometry have a huge overlap with the laws of physics. This is where the real vocabulary begins to build, and true communication can begin. Plus, we're already at the point where we can define CW vs. CCW and L vs. R.

There are two laws of physics that would be well-known to any civilization capable of sending and receiving signals. Both involve 3D effects that allow for unambiguous definitions of rotation and direction. And we've been working (successfully so far) under the assumption that the laws of physics are the same everywhere in the Universe, since Newton's Principia. We really only need one of the two laws, since once you have CW vs. CCW sorted out, you get L vs. R as a bonus. And vice versa. Here's those two laws, expressed in words rather than equations. You can find the equations online if you want, but words should be sufficient to get the idea across.

1. When an electron enters a magnetic field perpendicular to the lines of magnetic force it deflects in a direction determined by what's called the right hand rule. Good image of that here. The magnetic direction of "north" can be defined by a related effect, shown here.
2. The direction a gyroscope precesses when perturbed by a force perpendicular to its plane of rotation provides a similarly effective 3D frame of reference. Good image of that effect here.

Apologize for the long post, but two good questions were asked. The concept of establishing a means of communication with an extraterrestrial civilization has fascinated me for ages. I've no doubt we could get to stage 3 as described above. And in the process, communicate anthropo-specific concepts like CW CCW L R. But how far could we get beyond that? Could abstract concepts like God, evil, love, hate, beauty, or art even be approached? Much has been written on this question, and there's not much agreement. It's hard enough right here on Earth, where some languages have words for things other languages don't.

It just occurred to me that, since "they" would be in our own galaxy, even at stage 3, we could tell them that "clockwise" is the direction our galaxy rotates as seen from that nearest big galaxy over thataway (the one we call Andromeda).