Re: Letf / Right, was Re: Count and mass nouns
| From: | Philippe Caquant <herodote92@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Thursday, January 22, 2004, 7:51 |
|---|
Maybe, but the fact is that for (likely) 99,99% of
mankind, East is the direction of sunrise. Language
conforms to human experience.
--- "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...> wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 21, 2004 at 10:41:14PM -0600, Nik Taylor
> wrote:
> > Which is an illogical question. Directions like
> north, south, east, and
> > west are planetary conventions, and the only
> logical way to assign
> > "east" is "the direction the sun rises", and work
> out the other
> > directions accordingly.
>
> Not necessarily. There is also a solar-system-wide
> "north", which
> points out of the plane of the ecliptic in the same
> direction as the
> Earth's North pole. If you use that as a basis, a
> couple planets rotate
> east-to-west instead of west-to-east.
>
> -Mark
=====
Philippe Caquant
"Le langage est source de malentendus."
(Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
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