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This map is not upside down

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Re: This map is not upside down

#231

Post by marcusb »

dingaling wrote: post #178
kens wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly recommend the book "Metaphors We Live By", which discusses how metaphors are not arbitrary, but are part of schemas. For instance, there are whole classes of orientational metaphors that fall into the schemas: "more is up, less is down", "good is up, bad is down", "virtue is up, depravity is down", "rational is up, emotional is down", "having control is up, being subject to control is down", and so on. (Yes,…

[flagged]

They did, they just understood they were editing English not Latin.

Re: This map is not upside down

#232

Post by chatmasta »

pyuser583 wrote: post #156
dzuc wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The notion that north should always be up and east at the right was established by the Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy (90-168 AD). "Perhaps this was because the better-known places in his world were in the northern hemisphere, and on a flat map these were most convenient for study if they were in the upper right-hand corner," historian Daniel Boorstin opines. Mapmakers haven't always followed Ptolemy; during the Middl…

Strange. “Upper Egypt” is the southern part of Egypt and “Lower Egypt” is the northern part. The source of the Nile (to the south of Egypt) was the key reference point to ancient Egyptians. I searched, and Ptolemy was a Greek who lived in Egypt, not an ethnic Egyptian.

The first time I realized the Nile flowed from South to North, I thought someone was pranking me. It just felt fundamentally wrong. That’s probably because when you look at a globe, the Nile seems like it should be dripping downward…

Re: This map is not upside down

#233

Post by Affric »

schoen wrote: post #58
legitster wrote: post #40

Also, I was quite old by the time I learned that "Oriental" literally just means "direction of the sunrise". So to "orient" would specifically mean looking East. Before compasses all indicated North, "the North" was associated with cold and evil, the south was associated with warmth and prosperity, and the East was considered neutral when establishing bearings.

> Also, I was quite old by the time I learned that "Oriental" literally just means "direction of the sunrise". Even more literally "of the rising" ("occidental" meaning "of the falling"). The sun is of course implied here, but the Latin verbs orior and occido more generally indicate rising and falling motions of anyone and anything.

Interestingly “meridional” could mean south in some languages because it was towards the equator… which is funny when it’s used south of the equator.

Re: This map is not upside down

#234

Post by nitwit005 »

Martin_Silenus wrote: post #224
nitwit005 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the past, left handed people were sometimes punished and forced to write with the other hand. Their right handed writing was an artifact of that culture.

> Their right handed writing was an artifact of that culture. Sure. But that does not define a person as a right-handed writer. That's precisely why I wrote "individual's ABILITY to write with their right hand".

If you can't write with your left hand, because you never learned to do so, and you can with your right hand, you're a right handed writer. That's the only form of writing you can do.

Yes, the underlying handedness is independent of culture, but the actual ability is cultural.

Re: This map is not upside down

#235

Post by spuz »

My Australian Geography teacher (in the UK) had an upside-down map and anti-clockwise clock on the wall and told us that was how all maps and clocks were in Australia. We might not have been convinced, but it certainly gave a different perspective on the way things are.

Re: This map is not upside down

#236

Post by Rebelgecko »

abtinf wrote: post #112
hyperhello wrote: post #2

> Psychologically, we tend to view things nearer the top as ‘good’ and those lower as ‘bad.’ This, of course, is the point of the article. It was so predictable that it made me wonder: who is telling me that top is good and lower is bad? The articles themselves.

Those who claim the top is viewed as good by most people would also have to defend the claim that most people are Alaskan supremacists.

They're subservient to Santa, who is the uppermost

Re: This map is not upside down

#237

Post by nomdep »

hyperhello wrote: post #2

> Psychologically, we tend to view things nearer the top as ‘good’ and those lower as ‘bad.’ This, of course, is the point of the article. It was so predictable that it made me wonder: who is telling me that top is good and lower is bad? The articles themselves.

And the follow up question: why the author want to flip the map to see the countries at the top as bad and the lower ones as good?

Re: This map is not upside down

#238

Post by Affric »

pyuser583 wrote: post #156
dzuc wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The notion that north should always be up and east at the right was established by the Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy (90-168 AD). "Perhaps this was because the better-known places in his world were in the northern hemisphere, and on a flat map these were most convenient for study if they were in the upper right-hand corner," historian Daniel Boorstin opines. Mapmakers haven't always followed Ptolemy; during the Middl…

Strange. “Upper Egypt” is the southern part of Egypt and “Lower Egypt” is the northern part. The source of the Nile (to the south of Egypt) was the key reference point to ancient Egyptians. I searched, and Ptolemy was a Greek who lived in Egypt, not an ethnic Egyptian.

Upper is literally higher up with respect to distance from the Earth’s centre of gravity.

When I was 8 or 9 in school we studied Egypt and I had to know and no one could answer. Might have been one of the first things I used Google for.

Re: This map is not upside down

#239

Post by dietr1ch »

maxglute wrote: post #140
paxys wrote: post #72

90% of the world's population and 68% of the land mass being in the northen hemisphere is probably a good enough reason to put north up top on a map.

Split it at the equator, make them north south edges and make everyone angry.

You forgot to tilt it and to push the Greenwich meridian out of the center.
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