Circular Reasoning

Factual Questions
21

Annh! How about ‘overrightward’ and ‘overleftward’, of for that matter, ‘underleftward’ and underrightward’?

‘Over’ = above one’s center of vision when looking axially at the center of rotation. ‘Under’ = below it.

You prefer ‘screwily’ and ‘unscrewily’?

And if Archimedes had a spiral, he must’ve noted that, if he flipped it, it wound oppositely. Maybe ‘outright’ and ‘outleft’, or ‘inleft’ and ‘inright’.

And don’t leave out proto-engineer Ughy, who invented the wheel. He noted that when two wheels roll on the ground with an axle connecting them, when he pulled or pushed whatever sat between the two on a bearing about that axle, in the direction he normally wanted to go, points on the wheels’ rims rotated ‘progressively’; and when he moved the assembly in the opposite direction, they rotated ‘regressively’ – both these motions being observed when looking from the most reasonable direction, axially from beside the cart. I believe he preferred to call these directions ‘orple’ and ‘wample’. [No, don’t look for those prehistoric words in the OED. Ughy also invented a speech-recognition writing machine, but he couldn’t find an outlet to plug it into, so his language has been lost to prehistory.]

Ray, Sr. Screwy Word Inventor

22

On the question of why clock hands turn clockwise, it is because the first clocks were created in the northern hemisphere, where the shadow of the sundial points north, and moves in a left to right direction, along the face of the dial. While it is possible to look at the sundial from the northern side, the numbering was almost uniformly done from the southern orientation. When a mechanical clock was first used, it simply followed the familiar pattern.

<p align=“center”>Tris</p>

23

Some Roman water clocks had dials (operated by a float and a rack and pinion), and the design (with Chinese and Arabic improvements) continued in use in Europe until the 16th century.

John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams

24

I guess this just proves that the classical Romans all used digital watches.

25

The wealthier ones had one on each digit.

Ray (which takes me to asking why people can drum their fingers fast more easily little-finger-to-thumbwise than counter-so.)