[Bell Historians] Clock = Klok = Bell

[John Camp]

At 22:33 on 19 December 2009, Carl Scott Zimmerman wrote:
> Surprising it is that no one has yet mentioned a probably relevant 
> bit of evidence:  On ships, time is marked in "bells", which 
> subdivide a four-hour watch into half-hour intervals.  That usage 
> must be very old.

Curiously, the OED gives no citation earlier than 1836, in the
nautical context, though in the more general sense of "a bell rung to
tell the hours" the earliest citation is 1422.

But isn't Carl putting the cart before the horse?  It is the bells
which marked the half-hours, not the half-hours which were called
'bells'.

John Camp