The Egyptian calendar was like a watch that runs slow.
Please suggest to me a phrase that is suitable to replace the words runs slow in this sentence. Would it be suitable if I use operates slowly?
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2I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because questions about writing advice are clearly off-topic (but God forbid anyone go by what the Help Center says).– Alan CarmackOct 2, 2016 at 5:22
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Similar question: ell.stackexchange.com/q/82124– ColleenVOct 2, 2016 at 11:06
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@AlanCarmack Is it writing advice, or is it just asking for someone to paraphrase the phrase so it's easier to understand? I think this question is salvageable with some editing, learner, if you're asking about the meaning and not asking about how to write it a different way.– ColleenVOct 2, 2016 at 11:08
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3 Answers
A watch that runs slow is a watch whose mechanism is not working quite right, such that it marks time out of sync with Greenwich. For example, if you set it today at noon, and it agrees with your computer clock perfectly, by tomorrow at noon, it will be behind, e.g. reading 11:58 when your computer clock reads 12 noon. It lost two minutes, and we say that it runs slow. It gets more any more behind with each day that passes, unless you reset it.
Apparently, the Egyptian calendar had one or more design flaws, resulting in their year lasting fewer days than the amount of time it takes to make one full orbit around the sun.
A possible synonym for your phrase
a watch that runs slow
might be
a watch that's always late
it gives the sense of why theme is not correct on both phrases and by definition
A watch that runs slowly is always late.
- The Egyptian calendar was like a watch that trudged
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- The Egyptian calendar was like a broken watch
- The Egyptian calendar was like a watch with a broken spring
- The Egyptian calendar was like a watch with a failing battery
- The Egyptian calendar was like a watch that lost time