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Asklemmy @lemmy.ml

UrPartnerInCrime @sh.itjust.works

1y ago

How come we say counterclockwise and not earthwise?

56 comments

Well, for starters, that depends on which way you're looking at the earth.
- OK well then by that logic it depends on which way your looking as a clock. A see-through clock would cause chaos by your logic.
  
  The terms for "clockwise" and "Counterclockwise" originated long before clocks. Clockwise was originally called "Sunwise" and followed the movement of the shadow around a sundial.
  Counterclockwise was "widdershins", from a Middle Low German phrase meaning "against the way."
  We don't use "earthwise" because from our perspective, the earth doesn't rotate.
  
  How many see-through clocks do you own? I own none.
  
  It probably would actually. Imagine if Big Ben was a transparent circle with clock hands at the top.

Because who the hell knows by heart which way the earth turns
- I mean, anyone who hikes often or likes astronomy. It's kind of important for navigation and orientation to know where the sun will rise and set.
  Are you telling me you don't ever imagine yourself on a huge ball spinning towards the sun in the morning?
  
  I'm glad someone else at least understands how incredulous I am.
- I mean it only took me like 3 weeks of hard studying to remember it so it wasn't that bad
  
  Why would I need to appease some rando who hates standard analog clocks and do like 3 weeks of hard studying just to dissociate rotation vectors from time measuring tools?
  
  Try wearing a watch

Some of us say anticlockwise instead
- At this point I'll take it lol

Because in everyday life we can see the rotation of the clock hands but not the rotation of the earth.
- You don't see the sun move in the sky? Or do you think the sun is actually the one moving?
  
  So you say I need to know my orientation and position on earth and their orientation and position on earth just to tell someone in which direction I need to rotate something?

The word you want is "widdershins".
- Yeah, it is honestly
- Sunwise and widdershins! Only heard the term when I met some witches. IRL witches! It's a thing.

Because clocks are intuitive, the earth's rotation is not. We've agreed long ago that clocks spin to the right, and that convention has continued to this day. Analog clocks are now a regular occurrence everywhere in modern society. Up is 12, down is 6, Clock spins to the right. Ezpz.
The earth's rotation, while a constant, isn't easy to intuit. Depending on your frame of reference the earth spins to the right, to the left, ahead of you or behind you, or some combination of these local cardinal directions. In addition, there is no objective "up" in space. The most common map projections only orient north as "up" because of eurocentric bias when choosing such an orientation.
So nah, earthwise makes no sense for angular velocity unless you also want to mandate north = up
- So we agree clocks have to spin one way because that's how its is but we can't agree the earth spins one way because people are dumb? The earth spins in a leftwards direction as its spins around our star. That's facts.
  If you just want to call people dumb you are allowed to do that.
  
  No, we agree you have difficulty reading an analog clock.
  
  When viewed from which direction?

My friend's grandfather used to bet on horse racing all the time, and horses would go counterclockwise around the track no matter what track it was, so he'd say horsewise whenever he wanted to say counterclockwise.
- That dude's my hero

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clockwise
- Thank you. That's what this whole post is based on.
  Why does Big Ben get to decide which arbitrary way I say left turning?
  
  Clocks simply followed the direction of movement from the sundial (as seen in the Northern hemisphere).
  Nothing to do with "Big Ben" [sic].

Maybe I'm wrong, but maybe we should also say right and counterright. Tight and countertight. Open and counteropen.
- Maybe we should say a lot of things in more logical ways. Unfortunately, language evolves naturally over time and that comes with these kind of oddities
  
  My dude, I was joking. I'm trying to evolve the language I guess.

Because you then have anti-earthwise, which just sounds like a climate disaster, or humanity itself.
- Or, we could still use clockwise. Which is what I was thinking.

Here’s what’ll really bake your noodle. The north end of a magnet points north which means that the north magnetic pole is actually the South Pole of the Earth’s magnet.

56 comments