There are certain conventions we use when describing people, and one of those is deferring to that person’s subjective viewpoint when mentioning distinctive features. The question is, why?
Moshe Dayan wore a patch over one eye. If you were to ask him which eye, he would tell you it was his left. But facing him, you could correctly say that you see a man, and on the man’s face there’s a patch on the right side, therefore he wears a patch on his right eye. Yet we insist that, because from the frame of reference of one person out of billions (a man who’s been dead for decades now) the patch covers his left eye, that is how we must always express his appearance in words. There’s much potential for confusion here. And is not Dayan’s own perception of which eye he wears the patch on prejudiced by the fact that, as a species, we only have our organs of visual perception on one side (the “front”) of our heads? Thus we think of ourselves as “facing” (interesting word!) a certain way, with the implication that the side (the “back”) without eyes (or in Dayan’s case, an eye) is the lesser of the two.
I am not here to suggest that there’s no need for us to distinguish left from right as it applies to our own bodies - clearly there is. But why not drop the unreasonable notion that, when discussing Moshe Dayan’s eye patch, or Lincoln’s mole, or Van Gogh’s missing ear, we have to pretend that these people are in the room with us and so must always have it their way?
Huh… I would have said they are relative terms, relative to the person in question. Your right is my left, etc., as opposed to East or North, which are absolute (at least locally!)
But, yeah, anyway, it was his left eye that was covered.
If we accepted this idea, and someone asked you right now which eye Dayan wore a patch over, you’d have to say “I don’t know, because I can’t see him”. Does that seem better to you?
Or consider your doctor, who’s about to operate on your arm. Would you want the surgery team confused about which arm they’re operating on? Some members of the team, standing in front of you, are saying they’re operating on your right arm, and others are saying they’re operating on your left arm. Using the person’s own frame of reference avoids a lot of unnecessary confusion.
I agree - those historical figures have their nerve! That Moshe Dayan, selfishly flaunting his lack of an eye and insisting we see it HIS way.
We should make the changes the OP wants. And while we’re at it, can we do something about these “wheels” I hear so much about? They’re so smug, rolling around any way they want. They need to be updated or… re-invented in some way.
Reminds me of the time when the Raiders were losing a Monday Night Football game, quite badly apparently, and commentator Dennis Miller suggested that “the Raiders are playing like they’re wearing the patch over the wrong eye.”
you might be kidding, but the answer is the same; just in relation to the stage “face” itself, not the person looking at it or the actor upon it. If you assume the stage is “facing” the audience, then stage right and stage left are specific directions that are the same for everybody no matter where they are or which way they’re facing. Just like Mr Dyan’s eyes.
Actually, neither: I do some tasks with one hand and others with the other. Not too uncommon.
As I have my brain in my butt (so they tell me) I am rear-centric, so what you call my left hand I call my right.
I’m only being mildly frivolous. Left and right being absolute terms, let them remain so when captioning, say, a photo in a book or magazine. It will take some effort to adjust to the new paradigm, but we’ll all be happier for it.
