Boustrophedonist? Boustrophedontarian?
I like “boustrophedonist.”
Hedonism is my friend.
Interesting, I didn’t know that. I suppose it’s to emulate the direction of roundabouts?
I feel with car racing, it goes widdershins because the driver is on the left side of the car (in most cases) and it’s more natural to in terms of judging distance from the edge of the track.
Boustrophedist is sufficient. In Greek you delete the case ending before adding suffixes.
This isn’t remotely true. For example, the majority of tracks that have held Formula One races (56 out of 77) are clockwise.
Seventeen out of 46 IndyCar tracks are clockwise.
Uhhh. At the rec center my wife goes to, they have an indoor track. They change directions every day so as to keep people from getting dominant on one side or the other.
To the OP, I would spice up your indoor walking and just reverse it every other day.
Almost the same as my local Y. Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday it’s counterclockwise. Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday it’s clockwise
OK, let me partially recant my overly broad statement. But as for competitive track-and-field tracks in athletics stadia, the fact remains that they invariably run counterclockwise, and so do, to my knowledge, most hippodromes and dog racetracks.
That’s not correct. Most horse races in England are left turning, including Aintree (the Grand National) and Cheltenham.
That’s not what this says
This says only 30-40% of horse races in England go counterclockwise like ours.
I suppose in auto racing it’s a bit safer to keep the driver’s side away from the wall, but don’t really know.
From when I was ice skating, the usual situation was that your dominant foot is opposite your dominant hand.
I expect you’re right-handed and left-footed. It’s easier to balance and have your weight on your dominant foot, which means the inside of a turn.
I am right handed. In terms of footedness, with skating I feel better balance on my left foot, but pushing off I feel I have more power on my right.
Still waiting for Derek Zoolander to chime in…
I’ll meet your cites and give you this counter-cite which says that most British racecourses are left-handed, with “a few” (e.g. Kempton, Ascot, Sandown) being right-handed.
Horse Racing In Britain: A-Z Of The UK Racecourses
“At most tracks the races are run left-handed, ie anti-clockwise around the course, however some courses are right-handed (clockwise) - for example, Kempton, Ascot and Sandown.”
It helpfully lists all the courses in Britain, stating whether they are left- or right-handed.
Of the 60 courses listed:
33 have at least one left-turning course
22 have at least one right-turning course (One of these is described as a “right-turning figure of eight”; interpret that how you will!)
The remainder are mainly straight or not specified.
So the idea that right-turning is a standard in Britain seems to be a complete myth.
The 2 purported explanations in your first cite for why British racing was clockwise are incomprehensible to me:
1) The reason for this is believed to be because of the position of the judges’ box, which was typically located on the left-hand side of the track. By running clockwise, the horses would be racing towards the judges’ box
2) In British horse racing, the starting post is typically located at the highest point of the track, with the horses running downhill towards the finish line. By running clockwise, the horses would be running on the steepest part of the track