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

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, Nik Taylor wrote:

> "Mark J. Reed" wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Jan 21, 2004 at 09:02:31PM -0600, Nik Taylor wrote:
> > > I don't understand, tho, how being "amazing at reading maps" and having
> > > trouble even labeling a map of the US can co-occur.
> >
> > What's to understand?  Map reading has nothing to do with rote
> > memorization, which is what's involved in labelling a map of the US.
>
> But, how can you understand a map if you don't know what the places
> are?  If you're looking at a map and trying to figure out how to drive
> from one place to another, how can you even start off if you don't know
> where to look on the map?  If I want to figure out how to drive from,
> say, Kansas to Florida, I'd have to know where Kansas and Florida are!
Typically I find that road maps are labelled. If I wanted to know where
Kansas was, I'd turn to a map of the entire US and hope they wrote the
states out in full because otherwise I wouldn't know if I was looking for
KA or KS. If that took too long, I'd turn to an index, though I have a
rough idea of where I'm looking (unlike with, say Ohio) so I'd probably be
fine. Fortunately in Australia we only have six states and two territories
of similar status to memorise, though my way of remembering how many there
are is not by pulling the number off the top of my head or counting the
names, but pretending I have a map in front of me and pointing at them
(from left to right, top to bottom, so WA, SA, Qld, NSW, Vic, Tas). It is,
of course, trivial to add two to that to get the number of Places that
Count, with WA, NT, SA, Qld, NSW, ACT, Vic, Tas. (Tangentially, for some
reason, it seems to be common for international people to simplify them
down to all two letters, and so when mum saw my great aunt and uncle's
flight schedule, she wondered why it said 'Melbourne 6'.)

(Me, I have no problem reading maps, even when heading south and working
out the turns ages in advance. I have more trouble with having to tell
people which way left is. Or people randomly deciding to turn. On the
other hand, I'm always confused by other people's left and right (unless
in a car or something, where left is made obvious by the fact that it's
the side my car's on, being in a left-hand drive country).)

--
Tristan

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