Order of Directions
| This section requires expansion. |
While the directions can be listed in any order, most formally in clockwise or counterclockwise order, starting from some point (such as NESW, or, following the sun from daybreak in the northern hemisphere, ESWN), different languages conventionally use different orders, often using pairs of opposite directions. In English, the conventional order of the directions is "north, south, east, and west" (NSEW = N/S + E/W). In Japanese, most common is EWSN (東西南北 = E/W + S/N), and east-west (東西) is idiomatic for “everywhere, in all parts”; Japan is located at the extreme east of Eurasia.
Read more about this topic: NSEW
Famous quotes containing the words order of, order and/or directions:
“The order of the world is always right—such is the judgment of God. For God has departed, but he has left his judgment behind, the way the Cheshire Cat left his grin.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“It seems only yesterday that we saw
The movie with the cows in it
And turned to one at your side, who burped
As morning saw a new garnet-and-pea-green order propose
Itself out of the endless bathos, like science-fiction lumps.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“My friend devotes himself to his life, whenever he can find the spare time. His motto is: ‘Don’t just sit there: live!’ So he’s too busy to stand, to walk, to do anything, except to live. He even refused to kiss a girl, when invited, on the grounds that it was time again to be living. Schedules are sacred to him.”
—Marvin Cohen, U.S. author and humorist. The Self-Devoted Friend, New Directions (1967)