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Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

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Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#421

Post by anthk »

russellbeattie wrote: post #356
narrator wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One interesting thing about middle ages technologies, like boats, is that the words in the different romance languages for things invented in this era are very different from each other. For example, in Spanish boat words like port and starboard are totally different[1]. Other examples of middle ages words that are very different: windmill = molino, wheelbarrow = carretilla. Words that refer to older things have more…

In Spain a computer is an ordenador. Spaniards hate anglicisms. Car is coche, not carro, email is correo electronico, zipper is cremallera. Lots of others.

We use email too in Spain. It's shorter. And parking instead of "estacionamiento".

Also, we used to use computador/computadora in the old times (60's/70's).

Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#422

Post by jamager »

orestis wrote: post #414

In Greek boating terms, we use just plain left and right. At sailing school we were taught that left means always the left side of the ship as it travels forward, and similarly the right. We do use different words for the direction of the ship facing towards or away from the wind though. Not sure if the ancients used other words though. We managed to avoid confusion for a few hundred years though.

In Spanish is babor/estribor. Nothing to do with izquierda/derecha, no idea about etimology on this.

Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#423

Post by qtzfz »

TRiG_Ireland wrote: post #405
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots more Galicisms in Spain for sure :) probably easier to share words when you also share a land border.

Do Spanish-speaking and French-speaking areas actually share a border? I thought there was a buffer zone of Catalan and Basque. I'll need to check a map. On checking, it looks like there is a short (but very mountainous) border: https://maps-spain.com/maps-spain-geography/spain-language-m...

Don't be mislead by that map, everybody in those regions that say "Basque" or "Catalan" know Spanish perfectly well.

Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#424

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

lostlogin wrote: post #257
antognini wrote: post #89

It's interesting to compare how different professions handle the ambiguity in left/right. In the maritime world they went with an approach at one extreme, where they just use two completely separate words, "port" and "starboard." (Though that's far from the only case where there's a special word for something on a boat.) At the other extreme you have the medical profession where the first thing you learn in medical s…

> At the other extreme you have the medical profession where the first thing you learn in medical school is that left/right always refer to the patient's perspective. I was recently involved in a case where a patient decided that their left should be called the right side during a phone consultation as that would help their doctor. Good times.

Is this the story of how someone ended up with one less appendix than they should have?

Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#425

Post by perlgeek »

cypress66 wrote: post #400
perlgeek wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you describe it? One approach would be: you're moving along a straight line, perpendicular to a large body that attracts you through gravity. Now "down" is towards the gravity, "up" is the opposite direction, and "left" and "right" are perpendicular, but which one is left and right, if you cannot rely on handedness?

Just draw a view frustum and mark up, down, left, right, near, far.

That helps if you meet them in person, but if you communicate through radio waves, they'll have no way to know how to decode signal into an image with the intended left/right and up/down orientation

Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#427

Post by NeoTar »

denton-scratch wrote: post #329
narrator wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One interesting thing about middle ages technologies, like boats, is that the words in the different romance languages for things invented in this era are very different from each other. For example, in Spanish boat words like port and starboard are totally different[1]. Other examples of middle ages words that are very different: windmill = molino, wheelbarrow = carretilla. Words that refer to older things have more…

> windmill = molino I don't know Spanish, but "molino" looks like French "moulin", which is a mill; a windmill is "moulin a vent". So I reckon "very different" is an exaggeration.

An in German - Mühle... in fact the English Mill is pretty close too!

Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#428

Post by TeMPOraL »

rapnie wrote: post #325
OJFord wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To rig something up, to go overboard, to leave something in your wake.

Let's go full steam ahead, and dredge up some more.

> steam

That's the hallmark of industrialization, right there :).

In case anyone thinks the important bits stopped at the age of sail.

Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#430

Post by qtzfz »

anthk wrote: post #426
qtzfz wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carro is not used in Spain at all.

It's used, but for the old ones with horses.

Exactly, but don't ask Manolo Escobar about it, since it's somewhat of a sensitive issue for him.
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