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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?”

#581

Post by godelski »

wahern wrote: post #172
godelski wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a few other languages that do this (as the primary version. Most languages mix)[0]. In fact there's 3 main classes: - relative: in relation to the viewer (e.g. The mouse is to my right) - absolute: using some coordinate system, such as cardinal (e.g. Plant is on the North side of the room) - intrinsic: relative, but with respect to another object and not the viewer (e.g. the TV is on top of the TV stand which…

FWIW, if you read the literature closely, Kuuk Thaayorre is also mixed. They have words for left and right and use them to describe relative orientation, notwithstanding the emphasis on cardinal directions. A related language, Guugu Yimithirr, does seem to completely lack use of left and right to describe spatial orientation; it has the words--similar to Kuuk Thaayorre, words identifying left and right hand/arm--but…

> Alot of the literature also makes hay about these language speakers having preternatural skills at maintaining a cardinal orientation mentally.

Wahern is referring to the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis[0] (Linguistic Relativity). I do find that this is also often misunderstood. I'm in your camp about the directions. I've always viewed linguistic relativity as just saying that your language is a framework. It should be relatively obvious that if you use something a lot that you'll be good at it. You'll find that mountaineers, sailors, and pilots are better than most at of the population because they use cardinal directions a lot. It is experimentally provable that you can make your brain prioritize rather arbitrary things. For example, get a watch and set it to beep every hour. You'll probably get a better sense of time (especially if you can get different tones for 15 minute intervals). So what I'm saying is that the weak Sapir-Whorf is well recognized (what we discussed) but very few realistically believe the strong Sapir-Whorf.

But either way, if anyone reading these comments hasn't been interested in languages before I promise you that they are a lot cooler than you imagine. Far from just communication (which is rather incredible in the first place) and if you're interested in LLMs you should learn a minimal amount of linguistics.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

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

#582

Post by anthk »

jjav wrote: post #565
el-salvador wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's used, but for the old ones with horses. This was new for me. The Spanish words carro, carreta, coche, carretilla, carrito all mean "something that has wheels on it", but the meaning keeps changing between car, horse drawn carriage, baby stroller, shopping cart, horse drawn cart or toy car between countries. Fortunately it's easy to figure out from context and doesn't have possible misunderstandings as the Span…

> Fortunately it's easy to figure out from context and doesn't have possible misunderstandings as the Spanish word for straw. What/where are the misunderstandings for sorbeto?

[dead]

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

#583

Post by devoutsalsa »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #200
fargle wrote: post #135

When I was a kid in Minnesota we needed to learn port/starboard and the colors red/green. A trick that helped me remember is that "LEFT", "PORT", and "RED" are all the shorter words and "RIGHT", "STARBOARD", and "GREEN" are the longer words in the respective pairs. FWIW.

This would probably throw my girlfriend off. She has some kind of right/left dyslexia. When she's driving and I'm giving directions I have to tell her "short turn" or "long turn". Long turn being left, longer because it's across a lane, right turns are shorter. But if someone told her that left is shorter than right for remembering purposes, it would probably mess her up more when following driving directions.

Completely unrelated… my mom had a small dog when she was younger. The dog sustained a head injury at some point, and after that could only make right turns. If the dog wanted to go left, it had to turn 270 degrees to the right. In all other ways the dog was completely normal. But now I’m wondering if the dog wanted to lie on its left side, would it lie on its right side, roll into its back, and then settle on its left side?

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

#584

Post by jacquesm »

KMag wrote: post #566
jen20 wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To whit, having learned to drive on the left, the “easy” turn that does not cross traffic is always a “left” turn to me, regardless of living in a country that drives on the right. Makes giving directions to others quite interesting.

I learned to drive in the US, but lived over 10 years in Hong Kong, and have driven in New Zealand and South Africa. When I first moved to Hong Kong, I kept making eye contact with passengers instead of drivers when crossing the road on foot. In New Zealand (my first experience driving on the left), I turned on my wipers (on a sunny day) the first couple of times entering a roundabout (the turn signal is on the other…

I drove a Japanese car in NL traffic and whenever I had to downshift for turns in the first couple of hours after switching cars my right hand would slam into the door :)

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

#585

Post by pklausler »

tuatoru wrote: post #522
gorbypark wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the skiing and mountaineering world we use climbers (sometimes “lookers”) right/left or skiers right/left to differentiate when facing uphill or downhill. I find having both is helpful instead of just having a single standardized one. For example, if you are standing and looking at a mountain, it’s easier to say “just to the climbers left of that peak” because it’s on the left from your perspective, likewise when…

And in general hiking, referring to streams and rivers one may follow or cross, there are the "true left" and "true right" banks of the stream. Meaning, left or right looking the way the water is flowing: downstream.

"East bank" and "west bank" are also used for the sides of a watercourse that flows generally north/south, even for bits of it that are flowing east/west or have curved around to flow south/north. Which is why West St. Paul (Minnesota) is directly south of St. Paul proper -- it's on the "west bank" of the Mississippi, while St. Paul is on the "east bank".

(Same story, mutadis mutandis, for "north bank" and "south bank" of generally east/west-flowing rivers.)

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

#586

Post by devilbunny »

sandworm101 wrote: post #544
lostlogin wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I have heard stories of patients, entirely on their own, using black markers to indicate which leg/arm was to be operated upon. Surgeons are entirely OK with this. They appreciate it. I also heard a legend of a patient who themselves marked the wrong leg. This wasn't discovered until after sedation. The procedure was canceled until everything was clarified. When having my arm x-rayed years ago they places a small pad…

The surgeon has no issue with it because it is essentially universal policy in the US (don't know about other countries but can't imagine they don't have similar) that the surgeon must, prior to sedation, mark the surgical site themselves and put their initials on it. Exceptions are made for cases where there isn't a "side" (you only have one gall bladder), or where the wound is "obvious", or for exploratory surgeries where the actual site of all injuries is not yet known.

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

#587

Post by playingalong »

jojobas wrote: post #226
tzs wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the approach taken in some Australian native languages, e.g. [1], where they use absolute directions instead of relative directions, so they would call what we call the port side of a boat the north side if the boat was heading east, and call it the west side if the boat was heading north. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuuk_Thaayorre_language

Surely they don't have built-in compasses, so what would they do in an unfamiliar location on an overcast day?

Although possible, this is not happening to them frequently. The language hasn't optimized for that use case.

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

#588

Post by int_19h »

quenched wrote: post #88
wpietri wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Concision is way less important than clarity.

Eg if you're trying to shout over the wind.

Although from the same perspective the phonetic similarity "port" and "board" is probably not ideal, either.

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

#589

Post by WorldMaker »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #384
HPsquared wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't doctors simply use the Greek or Latin words for left and right?

Latin: sinister and dexter , I think they are used for parts of organs (eg liver); one source notes occulus sinister being used in the abbreviation OS for left eye. Greek dexios and aristeros ... well dexter come from dexios", as does the chemical suffix -dextrin. Aristeros* is a euphemism, it means something like "best" (I wonder if that's the origin of 'put your best foot forward') ... I'm told that left-sided thin…

The "left-side are unlucky" thing affects the Latin example as well as the Greek, at the very least in the way that English derived words get used: compare "dexterous" (modern English connotations of "able, agile") versus "sinister" (modern English connotations of "evil, subversive").

It's an interestingly deep rabbit hole in language etymology just how much "left" gets besmirched and "right" gets positive connotations. (The fact that "right" is also a synonym in English for "correct" being another bit of evidence.)

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

#590

Post by el-salvador »

jjav wrote: post #565
el-salvador wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's used, but for the old ones with horses. This was new for me. The Spanish words carro, carreta, coche, carretilla, carrito all mean "something that has wheels on it", but the meaning keeps changing between car, horse drawn carriage, baby stroller, shopping cart, horse drawn cart or toy car between countries. Fortunately it's easy to figure out from context and doesn't have possible misunderstandings as the Span…

> Fortunately it's easy to figure out from context and doesn't have possible misunderstandings as the Spanish word for straw. What/where are the misunderstandings for sorbeto?

https://www.speakinglatino.com/spanish-language-words-for-dr...
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