Drainage problems

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

I found a discrepancy between two articles, though perhaps it’s only the result of a little joke by Cecil.

The article about what would happen if the world stopped spinning ( http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a961122a.html ), ends with this statement: “The real difference, apart from the end of life as we know it, would be that, no matter what hemisphere you were in, the bathwater would go straight down the drain.”

However, we find out in another article ( http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_161.html ) that the relationship between planetary rotation and spinning water is an “erroneous bit of folk wisdom”.

So which is it? My guess is that, under most circumstances, the water would spiral out every which way, even if Earth were motionless.

2

I think that the “straight down the drain” bit was a joke. The direction that water swirls, and the fact that it swirls at all, is due to the shape of the basin.