Was there an alternative adjective to “clockwise” other than “the rotation you take around left hand”?
Also, how did all watch companies around the world agree on what the direction of “clockwise” is?
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Good question!
The real answer seems to be “right” and “left”.
Up and down?
Imagine you’re in the Northern Hemisphere and you face east toward the rising sun. Over the course of the day, the sun will seem to move to the south, and then set in the west. This forms a “sunwise” turn, which is what we now call “clockwise” because we made clocks in imitation of sundials.
In Swedish it’s called medsols and motsols. The iteral translation is with the sun and against the sun.
Is there a large perceptible pronunciation difference? Because if not med and mot being opposites seems like it’s rife for sitcom hijinks
There is, yeah, /meːd/ and /muːt/
Thank you! That makes sense, I forgot north Germanic languages don’t do final devoicing. In German, the d would be pronounced as /t/ in that position.
You rarely hear voiced plosives in spoken German in general. Negative VOTs are virtually unheard of. The distinction would be more accurate if described as aspirated/unaspirated than unvoiced/voiced.
I guess what I wanna say is that German 'd’s are most likely gonna be realized as /t/, no matter where they occur in the utterance.
It’s just negative rotation
Yes, but it’s learning optimism.
It is a non-existing problem, because they were talking in other languages then.
In czech, we have a phrase “jak sa kráje chleba” (same way as a bread is sliced). Problem is, that (at least in my social group) nobody knows, wether it means clockwise or anticlockwise, as everybody slices the bread differently.
same way as a bread is sliced
Haha interesting, but how do you slice bread by rotation? it’s up to down. That’s how you cut stuff.
- Grip the bread vertically to your chest.
- Start cutting in direction from the front to the back.
- Slowly rotate the bread, so you cut the crust only in one point (the tip of the knive moves through already cut bread).
It may be easier to see it with a short knive.
“Sunwise”, and for the exact same reason.
Clocks go clockwise because their predecessors did. What were their predecessors?
Sundials.
How does the shadow go around a sundial? Well, sunwise, of course.
Counterclockwise, as said in another comment, was “widdershins”, from a Middle Low German phrase meaning “against the way”.
Yes but, how did people know that time went sunwise before the sun?
Yes but, how did people know that time went sunwise before the sun?
Back before the solar system was fully formed, it was called “gaswise”.
Hi Dad! It’s me, Dad.
I somehow read this comment in the voice of the cleric performing the “mawwiage” ceremony in Princess Bride.
Cleric: “Sunwise…” long, uncomfortable pause. “And for the exact same weason.” Pause. “Clocks go clockwise because their pwedecessors did… and what were their pwedecessors?”
Humperdink: “Look, can we hurry this up?”
Cleric: “Sundials.”
Humperdink: “Just skip to the end!”
Cleric: “Countewclockwise… as said in another comment… would be… widdershins.”
Haha, thank you for this!
I’ve just find (in wiktionary) the word “moonwise”, meaning antisunwise/counterclockwise. But the moon moves the same way as the sun does. So is there some deeper meaning based off of some long-term patterns in lunar movement, or is it just simple antagonism sun×moon?
That’s what it appears to be. This is supported somewhat by the term “moonwise” not having a lot of historical usage, leading me to believe that it came along much later by someone who wanted a related antonym.
The only bit about the moon that seems to travel right to left are it’s phase changes, and even that is because we’re outside the rotation and watching along it’s horizontal plane. You’ll see the same thing with anything spinning clockwise in front of you: the closer edge goes right to left, the farther edge goes left to right.
You just made my brain click. I’ve always wondered why clockwise rotation around a vertical axis was commonly agreed. I have never seen a mechanical- or electrical clock installed flat on the ground. So why would we assume that the clock isn’t in the ceiling facing down, which would reverse the direction?
But now that you mention it in the context of a sundial, it seems so obvious that the clock is just an extension of that, making the sun and clock a common reference.
But that bids the question if they have another term for it in the southern hemisphere.
It’s been very difficult to find an answer for this, and I suspect it’s because most of the southern hemisphere is water, and most of the rest of it was colonised by people from the northern hemisphere. As of right now, I couldnt say if there simply weren’t words for that kind of rotational motion or if my google-fu simply isn’t strong enough.
The best answer I’ve been able to find is from Indonesia, which is equatorial. The word “sunwise” translates into a phrase “from left to right” via Google Translate, but that may just be an artifact of machine translation.
I didn’t even consider equatorial countries. That’s interesting as well. Depending on the season, the literal “sunwise direction” would change, while spring- and autumn equinox wouldn’t translate to any rotation around a vertical axis.
I used to be a swing dance instructor, and describing rotation as “to the left” or “to the right” always seemed a bit more natural and understandable for the general participant.
Sundials are also responsible for why we say “o’clock”. It’s a differentiatior. Because the speed of a sundial would vary based on the time of year while a clock was constant, you had to clarify what kind of time you were talking about. Did you mean 10 of the clock or 10 of the sun? (Basically no one said o’sun, if you didn’t specify, it was assumed you meant by the sun.) Somehow, that stuck around long after sundials fell out of common use.
I would have thought it was abbreviated from “on the clock”
I find it interesting that in Swedish the opposite of sunwise is “motsols”, i.e. counter sunwise or literally “against the sun”. Sunwise is called “medsols”, lit. “with the sun”.
ILJM.
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Widdershins needs to make a comeback. It’s a cool word
Also turnwise. Also we need to switch from a globe to a disk on the backs of four cosmic elephants, who are themselves on the back of a giant turtle
It seems like something a pirate would say. Widder me shins, but that’s a cold wind blowin’!
I am trying to picture it, but I think the sunwise convention only works in the Northern hemisphere.
Yep - in the northern hemisphere a sundial shadow will move from west to east in a clockwise fashion; in the southern hemisphere it still goes west to east but does so moving anticlockwise.
And if I’m thinking about this correctly, people between ~20N and ~20S latitudes will have it reverse throughout the year and and sometimes be a straight line.
Wait, it’s all anglo-centric?
Always has been.
🌍🏴🧑🚀🔫🧑🚀
That made me curious, so I tried to find a pre-clock synonym in Indonesian. The best answer I have is by translating “Sunwise”, which became “dr kiri ke kanan” or “from left to right.”
Which make sense, if something is going clockwise around you, that’s what you’d see. No idea if that was a real phrase or an artifact of machine translation, though.
This turned out to be a surprisingly fascinating question lol.
Semi related: QI uploaded this bit the other day about an aboriginal tribe that can flawlessly pinpoint north/east/south/west.
Cardinal directions as references instead of left/right are often a better option when describing locations, more people should use them. It’s not like it’s hard to get an idea of where north is - even if you’re a bit challenged on the spatial awareness front basically everyone these days has a phone that will easily tell you this.
I think saying “keep turning the component to the west” wouldn’t really work.
There are obviously exceptions, hence why I said often instead of always. Think larger scale and/or involving fixed objects and cardinal directions tend to be logical, for example:
-
Install the equipment in the western plant room.
-
Please set up the workstation near the power point on the western wall of the room.
-
Come in via Foo Rd, when you get to the intersection with Bar Rd turn west.
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My desk is in the south western corner of the office.
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Walk west along the ridge from the carpark, then once you reach the giant boulder take the northern spur down to the river.
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As someone who still confuses these “turn it around that way” - jiggles hand in vague motion- “oops no the other way” usually works just fine.
Turnwise and widdershins
I always heard it as ‘deosil and widdershins’
Ironically, I believe ‘turnwise’ is the one that’s made up – by Terry Pratchett.
GNU Terry Pratchett
As a non-native English reader, I now am not sure if this is a Pratchett reference or if these are actual round world terms…
Pratchett’s just using real-world (albeit archaic) terms: widdershins and deosil.
I have the feeling that the direction of the water in the toilet when flushing plays an important role here.
Ah yes, turdwise and widdershits as it was known in the olden days, before the invention of sundials
The first mechanical clocks were invented around 1300. The first flushing toilet was 1775.
“we don’t have clocks, how do we describe right ways or leftways rotation?”
“Well, the tires on my Dodge Ram 3500 rotate to the right when I drive it forward, so we’ll call it ramforward and rambackwards”
“Brilliant”
Yup. That’s definitely “down”.
Well, clocks are just mechanical sundials. Before clockwise, there was sunwise (or deosil), and clocks’ movements are based off of the movement of a shadow across a sundial.
does that mean that “clockwise” in the southern hemisphere is backwards?
No, because the earth is still rotating the same direction in the southern hemisphere
I read this article and I’m more confused now lol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundial#In_the_Southern_HemisphereEDIT: The last sentience sums it up well tho:
On horizontal northern-hemisphere sundials, and on vertical southern-hemisphere ones, the hour marks run clockwise.
Well well, learn something new everyday.
Pretty weird to think about. And about them having to either face their relevant poles or the equator for them to work equivalently
Northern sundials (both vertically mounted and horizontal versions) need to be pointed North, whereas Southern sundials need to be pointed South. The article is stating that Southern horizontal versions can be mounted vertically in the Nothern hemisphere but must be pointed South. I hope that helps, I had to re-read it a few times, myself.
Yes, because of the Coriolis effect (/j)
Yes, when you are in the northern hemisphere, a sundial shadow falls to the north of the gnomon (the thing that makes a shadow). This makes the shadow move from the northwest to north to northeast over a day, which is clockwise. In the southern hemisphere, the shadow from the gnomon falls to the south, so it starts in the southwest and moves to the south and then southeast, which is anticlockwise.
The most obvious way to see this is the photo of the sundial in Perth, where the hours run anticlockwise.
https://twitter.com/culturaltutor/status/1605415745093083137?lang=en https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundial#In_the_Southern_Hemisphere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundial#/media/File:Sundial_in_Supreme_Court_Gardens,_Perth.jpg
Used to be sunwise and counter-sunwise.
Ok, but how about before the sun?
Galaxywise and counter-galaxywise
and the rival; pixelwise and counter-pixelwize
I don’t have an answer for the original question, but what about just saying rotate right/left?
I mean, if I imagine a circle rolling on a flat surface, rotating right means the rotation that rolls the circle right (so clockwise rotation), and rotating left would be the opposite; where the circle rolls left.
Seit das Deutsche Reich besteht, wird die Schraube nach rechts gedreht!
What if the wheel is fixed to a frame and it moves a sheet above it like a conveyor system? Is the frame of reference the direction the sheet moves or is it how the wheel moves against the sheet? What if the sheet is below it like a pasta machine or sheet metal former? That being said, “right tightly, lefty loosey” has certainly prevailed
It works, but it’s ambiguous. You have to specify which part you’re referring to if you want to be sure you’re understood.
Honestly the hardest concept for me to grasp in organic chemistry was left vs right chirality. I could understand why they were different, but fuck me if i could ever consistently identify them.
You have to specify which part you’re referring to
What do you mean by that?
Turning right, looking at the top of the clock, is different from turning right while looking at the bottom of the clock. And so on.
You’re not entirely wrong, but the convention is to refer to the top of the wheel. But you could be looking at the wheel from the other side, which would change its direction from your perspective.
That’s true, but saying clockwise/anticlockwise also works with fixed perspective, unless the thing itself has a fixed orientation. but if that’s the case, left/right works the same.
No, it’s an extra level of confusion. Clockwise/counterclockwise only has one axis of confusion (looking from front or behind) with one option being the obvious default. Left/right have this axis AND the axis of top/bottom for confusion. It’s literally one bit more ambiguous.
No matter which direction a ball rolls, part of it moves to the right, and part to the left (either top right and bottom left, or vice versa). If you don’t specify which part of the ball you’re looking at, it could be either top or bottom, so the statement is ambiguous.
but without this information, clockwise and anticlockwise also ambigous.
No, they are well-defined. There is no missing information in “clockwise”. There is missing information in “right”.
There is no “top clockwise” or “bottom clockwise”.
Rotating right/left as measured from the top or the bottom changes the rotation.
Deosil, which is the direction the shadow on a sundual moves (in the Northern Hemisphere).
