springing forward

As with many things in life, I always feel like the odd one out by saying "daylight saving time" since it seems that everyone else on the planet says "daylight savings time." But I'm sticking to it—who's with me? In honor of losing an hour of sleep tonight, here's an interesting grammar tip from WebExhibits:

The official spelling is Daylight Saving Time, not Daylight SavingS Time.

Saving is used here as a verbal adjective (a participle). It modifies time and tells us more about its nature; namely, that it is characterized by the activity of saving daylight. It is a saving daylight kind of time. Because of this, it would be more accurate to refer to DST as daylight-saving time. Similar examples would be a mind-expanding book or a man-eating tiger. Saving is used in the same way as saving a ball game, rather than as a savings account.

Nevertheless, many people feel the word savings (with an 's') flows more mellifluously off the tongue. Daylight Savings Time is also in common usage, and can be found in dictionaries.

Adding to the confusion is that the phrase Daylight Saving Time is inaccurate, since no daylight is actually saved. Daylight Shifting Time would be better, and Daylight Time Shifting more accurate, but neither is politically desirable.

On a related note, I am in the market for a non-fugly alarm clock. Below, I have gathered a collection of candidates from around the Web. Thoughts? I'd buy that small font clock in a heartbeat, except that I couldn't justify spending $380 on something I'd likely thrash while violently fumbling around for the snooze button in the morning.

 Clockwise from top left: wooden clock ($199); Starck alarm clock ($100); retro quartz alarm clock ($68); model three clock radio ($299); small font clock ($380)

Clockwise from top left: cube clock ($45); green alarm clock ($30); WoodStation ($136); on/off clock ($35); anything clock ($69)