Compass Point Names
The names of the 32-wind compass rose follow these rules:
- The cardinal directions are North (N), East (E), South (S), West (W), at 90° angles on the compass rose.
- The ordinal directions are Northeast (NE), Southeast (SE), Southwest (SW) and Northwest (NW), formed by bisecting the angle of the cardinal winds. The name is merely a combination of the cardinals it bisects.
- The eight principal winds (or main winds) are the cardinals and ordinals considered together, that is N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW. Each principal wind is 45° from its neighbour. The principal winds form the basic eight-wind compass rose.
- The eight half-winds are the points obtained by bisecting the angles between the principal winds. The half-winds are North-northeast (NNE), East-northeast (ENE), East-southeast (ESE), South-southeast (SSE), South-southwest (SSW), West-southwest (WSW), West-northwest (WNW) and North-northwest (NNW). Notice that the name is constructed simply by combining the names of the principal winds to either side, with the cardinal wind coming first, the ordinal wind second. The eight principal winds and the eight half-winds together yield a 16-wind compass rose, with each compass point at a 221⁄2° angle from the next.
- The sixteen quarter winds are the direction points obtained by bisecting the angles between the points on a 16-wind compass rose. The sixteen quarter-winds are North by east (NbE), Northeast by north (NEbN), Northeast by east (NEbE), East by north (EbN) in the first quadrant, East by south (EbS), Southeast by east (SEbE), Southeast by south (SEbS), South by east (SbE) in the second quadrant, South by west (SbW), Southwest by south (SWbS), Southwest by west (SWbW), West by south (WbS) in the third quadrant, and finally West by north (WbN), Northwest by west (NWbW), Northwest by north (NWbN) and North by west (NbW) in the fourth quadrant.
The eight principal winds, eight half-winds and sixteen quarter winds together yield a 32-wind compass rose, with each compass direction point at 111⁄4° angle from the next.
The name of a quarter-wind is typically "X by Y", where X is a principal wind and Y is a cardinal wind. As a mnemonic device, it is useful to think of "X by Y" as a shortcut for the phrase "one quarter wind from X towards Y", where a "quarter" is 111⁄4°, X is the nearest principal wind, and Y the next (more distant) cardinal wind. So "Northeast by east" means "one quarter from NE towards E", "Southwest by south" means "one quarter from SW towards S". The title of the famous Alfred Hitchcock 1959 movie, North by Northwest, is actually not a direction point on the 32-wind compass, as one quarter away from North towards the direction of Northwest is expressed as "North by west", and not "North by northwest". If the author of the film 'title' (suggested as the head of the story department at MGM), meant one point from Northwest towards North, the correct term would be "Northwest by North".
Read more about this topic: Boxing The Compass
Famous quotes containing the words compass, point and/or names:
“It is not for man to follow the trail of truth too far, since by so doing he entirely loses the directing compass of his mind.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“People talk about the conscience, but it seems to me one must just bring it up to a certain point and leave it there. You can let your conscience alone if you’re nice to the second housemaid.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)
“Men have sometimes exchanged names with their friends, as if they would signify that in their friend each loved his own soul.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)