A clock hangs on a wall, stands on a desk or sits on a tower; a watch is worn on your wrist. English splits them by one simple test: do you wear it or not? The one that wakes you up in the morning is an alarm clock.
clock or watch — can you pick the right one?
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a clock on the wall; an alarm clock; wear a watch; check your watch; my watch is fast/slow
- The kitchen clock is five minutes fast, so we're never late for the bus.
- He checked his watch twice during the meeting and then left early.
- I set my alarm clock for six because my flight leaves at nine.
What changed
First versionMy watches are ten minutes slow, so I missed the train.
RevisionMy watch is ten minutes slow, so I missed the train.
It's easy to treat watch like glasses or trousers, words that are always plural. But a watch is a single thing: one watch, so the verb is is. Watches means several of them, so my watches are slow sounds as if you own a whole collection.
A clock is any timepiece you don't wear, including one on a screen: The clock on my laptop is still on Moscow time. You can also say the clock on my phone, but people usually keep it simpler: I checked the time on my phone.
Your turn
I forgot my ___ at home, so I kept asking people what time it was.
Show the answer
watch — Something you carry with you and can leave at home is something you wear, so it's a watch. A clock stays on a wall or a desk; nobody takes it out with them.
Describe how you keep track of time during the day. Say whether you wear a watch and where there's a clock in your home.
I don't wear a watch any more, but we have a big clock in the hall that I check before I leave.
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