Re: boustrophedon (was: Atlantis II)

Dan Jones wrote:

> Nik Taylor wrote:
>
> > Interesting.  I have no problem with that, early on I used the mnemonic
> > of reading, you start on the left, and go to the right.  However, I do
> > often confuse east and west.
>
> The thing that really used to confuse me was latitude and longitude, I could
> never tell which one went horizontal and which vertical until I had the
> mnemonic that Latin is written on a horizontal line, therefore latitude is
> horizontal. This was before I knew the meaning of the word "lateral", of
> course ;o).
Telling left from right used to be very difficult for me.  The only way I could
remember was by imagining myself holding a pencil:  I'm right-handed, so the
imaginary pencil would appear in my right hand, and then I would know.

I still have trouble with clockwise and counterclockwise.  I need the extra step
of imagining a clock and watching the second hand sweep around.

ObConlang:  Has anyone come up with any interesting systems for representing
direction and orientation?  Tokana has terms for left and right, and for the
major points of the compass, but the Tokana generally make reference to local
landmarks in giving directions.  As they live in a fertile coastal region, most
of their direction terms refer to bodies of water--e.g., "towards the ocean",
"away from the ocean", "towards the nearest river", "away from the nearest
river", "away from the nearest river", "upstream", and "downstream".

Matt.

P.S.:  Yesterday I saw the McDonald's comercial that was mentioned a while ago,
featuring subtitled dialogue in Atlantean (tie-in with the new Disney movie).  I
never thought I'd live to see the day when McDonald's would use a conlang to
sell its hamburgers.

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