Order of Directions
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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 and/or directions:
“A self is, by its very essence, a being with a past. One must look lengthwise backwards in the stream of time in order to see the self, or its shadow, now moving with the stream, now eddying in the currents from bank to bank of its channel, and now strenuously straining onwards in the pursuit of its chosen good.”
—Josiah Royce (1855–1916)
“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)