One time I called 911 because I was following a drunk driver that had collided with multiple vehicles and kept driving. The operator asked me what direction so I looked at my maps app and it said I was going west so I told them west and they said “Sir that street doesn’t run west.” I was speechless after that.
At one point in my childhood, my dad made the comment, “Women don’t know compass directions.” I took offense to that and made a point to learn them to prove him wrong.
I felt vindicated in high school when he was coming to pick me up from a friend’s house and said, “I’m at the gas station. Do I go left or right?” I told him there were several gas stations on the way, and asked which direction he was facing to figure out which one he was by. He couldn’t tell me and finally hung up on me in a huff.
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Coloradans be like “just look at the mountains smh”
If it’s before noon: Go away from the sun.
If it’s after noon: Go toward the sun.
If it’s night… Wait for morning, and go away from the sun.
Instructions unclear, I’m at the north pole
If you’re at the pole, just walk due south.
The moon would like a word
There’s no idiom for which way the moon rises and sets 🤷🏻♂️.
Well it tends to rise and set in the same direction as the sun because the earth spinning is what causes them to rise and set.
*Advice not applicable if you are north or south of a given latitude.
stuck somewhere where the sun doesn’t set for like a month
Do… Do I wait?
Haha, yes there’s that extreme. However that effect is a gradient. You start to notice it north of the 60th parallel (Canada where the bulk of the population lives) but it’s only slight. In winter the sun is just slightly south of the middle of the sky.
Here in Campbell River BC we are at the 50th parallel, and on Saturday at Noon (we are out of DST now so we are talking true noon) the sun was to the direct south, 45 degrees to the horizon. It rises and sets… but to the SE, S and SW.
My initial thought when reading your comment was a response about differentiation of both hemispheres, but the way you wrote it was actually quite clever, so kudos for that! :D
What? You don’t have an internal compass that keeps you oriented? For some reason I seem to be a lucky person that just knows which compass direction I’m going no matter where I am. And it’s a very weird and frightening feeling if I do get disoriented. I had some pain meds after a surgery that did that to me. Flushed them damn things down the toilet after the first 2 I took.
That sounds really nice. I’m sure I could develop the skill, but I have to check the Sun
I’m with you. Short of that one day dead noon Hawaii or the middle of a forest I feel like there are clues to approximate North and South even when I’m discombobulated.
Left.
If I learned anything in geography class than that west is on the left
And North is in space
Your phone is a compass
I don’t know why, but the phone compass is always so shit.
I think it depends on how you hold it.
That’s what I said
Or just ask them which is west and they can point you towards it? Your not a compass needle lol, what is that assumption.
Opposite to the east.
Go west. Life is peaceful there. Go west. Lots of open air.
I have problems telling right from left. At least I’m the moment, if I take my time I can tell.
But I almost always know my cardinal directions
Do you “write” with your “right” hand? That’s how I remember.
Like I said repeatedly. If I get to think about it I know what side is what. It’s only in the moment when I falter
I only mention it as for the last forty years or so every time that someone has said left or right I’ve twitched my hands to work out which one I hold a pen(cil) with. Takes less than half a second and I don’t need to look at them either. It’s not unique not immediately knowing which is which. Live with it.
If you extend your thumb and first finger, the L shape that is the correct way around is on your left hand.
Yeah I know when I have time to think about it.
It’s just when people say: ‘go left here’ or me throng to indicate direction in a split second that my change of getting it right reduced to 50%. My brain doesn’t grok that left right isn’t absolute but related to orientation.
Just remember that port is a 4 letter word and so is left. So left is port and right is starboard.
Thnx, very helpful.
What helped me as a kid is imagine to write. That’s my left hand and than I know which is which without thinking too consciously (in case you’re right handed, it’s the other way around obviously).
But interesting that you know absolute directions easily. That’s a cultural thing actually. I think Australian Aborigines will say things like “my western foot hurts” because it’s more intuitive for them that way.
If I think for it for s second I know, I’ll think about my dominant hand too (although my dominant feet is on the opposite side so I don’t have a clear dominant side).
Yeah the aboriginal method seems way more intuitive to me, yet it probably won’t replace the left right system anytime soon :p
All roads lead to East New Westersouth.
