From "Nearly Everyone, Everywhere, Veers Left When Walking/Researchers are at a loss for why people across cultures and ages, regardless of their dominant hand, have a natural bias toward wandering in a counterclockwise direction" (NYT).
The words "clockwise" and "counterclockwise" suggest that clockwise is the more natural tendency. "Counterclockwise" sounds like going backward. But the clock had to go to the right when it was a sundial (in the northern hemisphere), and that established the tradition.
The words "clockwise" and "counterclockwise" did not emerge until the 19th century. What did people say before that? I think they used the strange word "deasil" (or "deiseal"), which the OED traces back to 1771 and defines as: "Righthandwise, towards the right; motion with continuous turning to the right, as in going round an object with the right hand towards it, or in the same direction as the hands of a clock, or the apparent course of the sun (a practice held auspicious by the Celts)."
If it is indeed auspicious to circle to the right, then why do we naturally circle left? One thinks of the etymology of "sinister."
Posts
62 comments:
You forgot "windershins" (= "against the way")
I think the opposite of deasil was widdershins. Which, according to Merriam Webster, was used as early as 1545.
"You forgot "windershins" (= "against the way")"
I was going to go into that. I did see it, so didn't literally "forget" it. I had a detailed page about Celtic rituals but it struck me as... sinister.
Grok had given me this: "Rituals and folklore — Walking "sunwise/deasil" around a person or object was often seen as lucky or proper (e.g., in Celtic traditions). Going "widdershins" was the reverse and sometimes avoided or used in specific magical contexts."
In New Zealand, Australia, Jamaica and other left-side driving countries where I've spent any time people also *walk* on the left side for pedestrian traffic, which works fine in the regional airports.
Go to Auckland, Sydney, or other international hubs and it's absolute chaos, due to the mix of left-side walkers and right-siders ... neither sort knowing what to do.
Then toss in the allegedly-polite Japanese, who never met a queue they respected. Goat Rodeo. Once in Auckland I heard a freshly-arrived family on holiday trying to sort things out in Québec French.
I had a good wait to catch a flight over to Sydney, and you should have seen them light up when I greeted them in la langue de chez nous. So I explained how things work in NZ -- walk on the left; never, ever spit in public; don't be shocked how incredibly clean everything is; even in winter [it was June] many people walk around barefoot, even in shops, cafés, restaurants, etc [yes, it's that clean]; Kia Ora from the Māori is the standard greeting for everyone; that NZ$5 = C$4; and most-appreciated ... never "tip". Kiwis do not "tip".
Then it was off to my gate, barging straight up the middle, like the interior football lineman I'd been in my college years.
Seems to me this has been known for years. One of the things we were taught in orienteering was the tendency to drift to the left, and that one had to be aware of it, especially in wooded areas.
Iran allegedly shoots down a military helicopter, risking two military lives. All is fair... team hegseth allegedly targets civilian water desalination plants in response. Seems American. We can't win in a fair fight...hit the civilians harder
There are no real men left.
A weak bias.
This confuses me (no surprise ;)). When I start walking counterclockwise around a track, say, I go to the right. Here, the implication is I should head to the left. However, I do see that when I start walking to the right around a track, my overall direction is to the left.
Another word one hears is "sunwise." There were supposedly old superstitions against walking counterclockwise.
Dante always turned left when descending through Hell, but always turned right after reaching Purgatory.
Judging by the people I get behind in traffic, it is because of what they carry in their dominant right hand and blocks the view to the right.
This may be a simple extension of the rules of the road for cars. Cars initially had steering wheels on the left, right, or center. Some countries went for "keep right" and others went for "keep left." Today, "keep left" or moving clockwise remains in Japan and the UK commonwealth. Most people are exposed to "keep right" from a very early age.
IMO it's untestable outside of tribal cultures, and perhaps they too have been exposed to the larger world. North Sentinelese folks???? What do you say?
Breezy, I see what you're saying. This presentation is a bit counterintuitive. In order for this to happen you do need to make an initial turn to the right upon entering the space, and then turn left when you reach an obstruction. I think this is what Tim is suggesting from his orienteering experience, that we tend to turn left when our path forward is blocked.
I watched that video as hard as I could and still I never saw the guy in the gorilla costume.
Most large grocery stores are set up to flow counter clockwise
A bias? We must outlaw it.
Might have something to do with getting away while carrying something valuable. One hand to clear the way and the other to hold a bounty.
Thanks, Christopher B. Agreed, Tim’s concept of drifting left works better here for me.
Desmond Morris was not available for comment.
Do they go counterclockwise south of the equator; like toilets?
We do dances for all ages at our music non-profit and have an experienced ballroom dance teacher start them with lessons, and she always says we should all move counterclockwise around the room.
There was a song years ago, British, I think, about two flowers that were cross-pollinated. One grew clockwise, the other "anti-clockwise." Their seeds grew a plant that was neither, it grew tall, and fell sloppy dead.
very sinister.
It's the counter corleolis effect
This may have already been said but the sun only appears to move east to west because the earth is spinning as viewed from the North Pole counterclockwise.
Races on an oval track - all I can think of go counter clockwise.
If you’re walking a pure circle or oval, don’t you sort of end up doing both? Regardless of how you start out?
Handedness appears to be somewhat genetic, but fairly uniformly distributed around the world, maybe 80% Dexter, and 20% Sinister. Circular stairways in castles were apparently designed around this, with circular stairways going counterclockwise, in order to impede the sword arms of attackers.
This might affect our general direction of travel. Notice, around a mall, traffic is mostly, always counterclockwise. Possibly from starting off on your dominant foot - typically, but not always, mirroring your handedness. My partner is one of those exceptions, leading off with her left, despite being right handed. She blames it on all the almost two decades of dance she did before having kids - formal dance (e.g. ballet) starting off on the left foot.
For years, decades really, I used to go to the left and then follow the perimeter with dips into pertinent aisles. I suspect this was just habit, or imprinting, because that’s how my mom did it. Somewhere along the line, I reversed that . I don’t specifically remember why. I do notice that my son, mid-twenties, goes to the right at the grocery store. I imagine just because by the time he came along, I’d already made that shift.
I would like to thank you for this post. I live in Philadelphia, PA, which is a very walkable city. While the sidewalks are not terribly crowded we will almost always encounter other people when walking to dinner, movies, sports etc. When walking down the sidewalk and seeing someone walking towards me from the other direction, I attempt to move right because I assumed (we drive on the right side of the road, drive right, pass left, etc.) that's the polite thing to do. It's incredibly annoying when the other person then moves left and comes straight at you. I assumed this was one of many (oh god, could I go off here) annoying things that Philadelphians do. But no, it's human nature. So thanks for reminding me that Philadelphian's are humans too. It's questionable sometimes.
I had a track coach in high school who had us train both directions one year. Something about evening strength or something. I don’t know if that was hooey or not. I just did what coach said.
I have found that pedestrians in Ireland are entirely unreliable in which side of the pavement they choose to pass on. I would expect them to take the left side, but as often as not, they will go right.
I've had loads of fun across the years, messing with tourists in the Southern Hemisphere .. that the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east. When you look at the Sun it *does* move right to left, but only because you're looking north at it.
There is, however a truly neat phenomenon which takes people a while to grasp. Because the seasons are reversed, if you're at, say, 39° S [roughly Taranaki, NZ] and *live* at 39° N as I do [near Lawrence, KS], on any given day the Sun rises (and sets) at the same place on the horizon.
In the Southern it moves R-->L , low in the winter sky, but in the Northern it arcs L-->R and high in the sky. Same latitude? same places on the horizon.
Now I'm wanting a flat-white [coffee] and a lammington [pastry] for my brikkie [brickfist =breakfast] whilst the fog burns off and it warms up to maybe 7° C.
Happy to see the re-invigoration of 'widdershins'.
80% were probably holding their cell phones in their left hands...
Hindu religious circumambulation is clockwise
Probably also in Mecca
From sidewalks to NASCAR to street takeovers. Divers' side on the left.
The opposite phenomenon observed in Britain?
British auto races primarily run clockwise. This tradition originated from early European motorsport events, which adopted their directional layouts from European cycling and historical horse racing conventions.
North America: Auto races in the United States (like NASCAR) typically run counter-clockwise (anti-clockwise). This is partly because American drivers sit on the left side of the vehicle, providing them with a better view of the inside of the track and barrier safety during turns.
I have heard that people tend to drift to the left because the human body has its weight asymetrically distributed - primarily the internal organs.
I don’t see how the determination “regardless of dominant hand” can be stated with confidence.Raise a few generations (might take longer) of predominantly left handed folks (90/10 like it is now but the other way) with right turning stairwells like somebody mentioned, jars that open clockwise and so on, (everything left handed) and I bet they’ll be drifting right including the 10% who are right handed, before long.
True. After 27 years together, I've learned to walk to the right of my wife. Otherwise, as we go along she'll drift to the left and bump into me.
Watch any video of takeoff and landings from an aircraft carrier. The island (tower) is located on the starboard (right) side. This is from experience. When a pilot is overwhelmed, distracted or nursing an ailing airplane, their overwhelming tendency is to veer left. The island on the right reduces the chance of a pilot plowing into the command center of a carrier.
In WWII, Japan had not yet learned this lesson, so had a higher number of pilots crash into the island.
Left is intuitive and right is counterintuitive.
Do they go counterclockwise south of the equator; like toilets
…in New Zealand the toilets are mostly low flow water savers, so explosive chaos. Kind of like their International airports..
Hmmm, have they done this study in the Southern Hemisphere, wonder if this is a coriolis effect. Sinister/Dexter is left hand/right hand dominate, respectively. I find the UK "anticlockwise" locution more satisfying to say compared to the American "counterclockwise".
Similar to this famous experiment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ_htuCMCqM
>tommyesq said...
I have heard that people tend to drift to the left because the human body has its weight asymetrically distributed - primarily the internal organs.<
The weight of the internal organs is fairly evenly distributed. But if you have to make the call on weight asymmetry it easily goes to the right side, because the body's largest organ, by far, is on the right. There goes the weight/drift theory...
If you have a bunch of kids who were raised on digital clocks, the word clockwise doesn't mean a lot ...
"…in New Zealand the toilets are mostly low flow water savers,"
Well, they're two-buttoners.
Much more intuitive than the three sea shells.
@Bart Hall - The thing I like about sunrise and sunset down under is the angle the sun takes is reversed. E.g., up north the sun sets left (higher, south) to right (lower, north). Down under its right (higher, north) to left (lower, south). Sunrise is the opposite. I always seem to forget that every time I'm down there and misanticipate which side of sunset to expect the crescent moon the first night out.
"In New Zealand, Australia, Jamaica and other left-side driving countries where I've spent any time people also *walk* on the left side for pedestrian traffic, "
It's a habit I have difficulty breaking when we return home (we're down under for 2+ months every year). I have an easier time switching back to right-side driving than I do the sidewalk.
I go for right-handedness, i.e. right side dominance. It's easier and more natural to push off from the stronger side. I used to be a pretty good skier but turning left was always a breeze while turning right sometimes took an effort.
Please add that to "Fundamental Facts of Life - Made Up On The Spot".
“ I have heard that people tend to drift to the left because the human body has its weight asymetrically distributed - primarily the internal organs.”
No, it’s because whenever you are walking anywhere the phone is in your right hand and the water bottle is in your left. The water bottle is heavier.
One of the great mysteries of biology, biochemistry, and biophysics is the non-random distribution of chirality and situs and handedness. In a world governed by pure randomness, one would expect half of us to walk clockwise in the experiment from this article. We'd also expect half of us to be left-handed, left-handed sugar molecules to taste the same as right-handed ones, DNA strands to come in mirror images, and half of all humans to have their hearts and stomachs on the right side and their livers on the left.
I once had a professor of embryology from the deep South, with a devout Southern Baptist conviction to match. His accent, appearance, and demeanor would mark him as a diesel mechanic from rural Alabama to the casual observer, but he had an Ivy League Ph.D. and was among the world's experts in his field. We were discussing the complicated first-trimester fetal development of the multiple chambers and valves and pipes of the human heart from the primitive rectilinear cardiac tube, and how the vast majority of the time humans end up with the left-sided heart and matching connections in the abdomen that we know from the anatomy books. One of the students asked how the embryo "knows" where left and right are, and the professor answered in all sincerity, "It doesn't. It can't. I know of no scientific explanation that overcomes an acceptance that the finger of God reaches out and pushes each little heart leftwards at about four weeks into pregnancy."
Hello, Dane County Farmer's Market.
This post reminded me of that scene in the 1978 movie, Midnight Express that is referred to as "walking the wheel." The prisoners are supposed to walk clockwise in a circle around a large pillar. Billy comes into the empty pillar room and walks counter clockwise around the pillar and, as the prisoners enter, they try to discourage Billy from doing that, as they begin circling the pillar clockwise, but he continues. One prisoner says to him. "There will be trouble if you go this way. A good Turk always walks to the right."
Leading with the stronger right side (which results is a leftward twist) is an evolutionarily favorable behavioral trait which is passed down genetically.
This internalization of a specific behavior through genetic transfer is passed on irrespective of the handedness of the individual.
In other words, humans are genetically disposed to lead with the right side because most humans are right handed and the behavior is inherited.
If anyone wishes to nominate me for a Nobel Prize in biology, I'm OK with that.
(which results IN a leftward twist)
Genetic transfer of behaviors is controversial because it is difficult to explain with conventional Darwinism.
"how the embryo "knows" where left and right are, and the professor answered in all sincerity, "It doesn't. It can't. I know of no scientific explanation "
I spent a lot of time in my career troubleshooting x-ray imaging systems, including prototypes we built ourselves. "How do it know?" became a mantra in my lab. It's not usually clear at the beginning, but there is an answer. It do know. Somehow. Discover how and you've solved your problem. (Well, you've discovered the reason for the problem. The fix may be another matter.)
There is a method by which the embryo "knows" right and left. We just haven't discovered it yet.
The impression I got from gym classes and movies is that people tend to move in a clockwise direction. On the other hand, foot, horse and car races do run to the left, in a counter-clockwise direction. Shoppers, it's said, also tend to move in a counter-clockwise direction, but is that natural or because the layout of the store encourages it?
Post a Comment
Please use the comments forum to respond to the post. Don't fight with each other. Be substantive... or interesting... or funny. Comments should go up immediately... unless you're commenting on a post older than 4 days. Then you have to wait for us to moderate you through. It's also possible to get shunted into spam by the machine. We try to keep an eye on that and release the miscaught good stuff. We do delete some comments, but not for viewpoint... for bad faith.