Re: OT: Spatial thinking (WAS: Re: Letf / Right, was Re: Count and mass nouns)

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004, John Cowan wrote:

> Roger Mills scripsit:
>
> > Grids are BOring; mazes like Boston - London - Paris are beautiful.
>
> All very well, but when moving about on foot, there is an immense
> advantage to knowing that if one is on 22nd St., 23rd St. may be
> reached by walking in the canonical positive direction (north in
> New York, west in Philadelphia).  Boston's system provides
> easy navigation -- if you are a cow.
That has nothing to do with a grid, though; it comes from a neumeric
system. Melbourne's CBD is a grid, and how do you know that going east
from Elizabeth St gets you to Swantson St? or north from Collins St gets
you to Bourke St? What tells you were the Bourke St Mall (carless road,
not shopping centre) is? Only because you've been to the city often enough
that you've memorised it. (For the first few north/south streets going
west->east, there's a faux mnemonic: Spencer St (border, everyone knows
the borders), King St, William St, Queen St, Elizabeth St. Of course,
there was no King William at the time Melbourne was founded, and to my
knowledge none of them had wives named Elizabeth.)

--
Tristan

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