Comment on How did people refer to clockwise movement before the invention of the clock?

Spuddaccino@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

• NotYourSocialWorker@feddit.nu ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  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”.

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  • jbrains@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    IJLM.

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• db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Widdershins needs to make a comeback. It’s a cool word

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  • meyotch@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    It seems like something a pirate would say. Widder me shins, but that’s a cold wind blowin’!

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  • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    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

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• dirkgentle@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I am trying to picture it, but I think the sunwise convention only works in the Northern hemisphere.

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  • Auk@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    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.

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    • XeroxCool@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      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?

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      • EldVrangr@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Always has been.

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• southbayrideshare@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  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.”

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  • clockwork_octopus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Haha, thank you for this!

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• Synthead@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Yes but, how did people know that time went sunwise before the sun?

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  • sawdustprophet@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    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”.

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    • DarthBueller@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Hi Dad! It’s me, Dad.

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• Ultraviolet@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  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? Somehow, that stuck around long after sundials fell out of common use.

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  • CrayonRosary@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I would have thought it was abbreviated from “on the clock”?

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• kozel@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  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?

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  • Spuddaccino@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    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.

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• dQw4w9WgXcQ@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  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.

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  • Spuddaccino@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    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.

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    • dQw4w9WgXcQ@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      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.

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