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Stewart Sherman’s Telling Time (University of Chicago Press,
£15.25/$18.95, ISBN 0 226 75277 1) is an interesting sidelight on
the consequences of the development of accurate timepieces in the 17th and 18th
centuries. It made the calculation of longitude possible, but it also had
profound effects on writers of journals and diaries ranging from Pepys to
Boswell and Johnson. Before the invention of the escapement, “tick” meant a
light blow or a bite from a bloodsucker. After it, “tick, tick, tick”
revolutionised the literary scene.