Re: translation exercises:1

["Peter L. Schuerman" <plschuerman@UCDAVIS.EDU>]

On Wed, 27 Sep 1995, Don Wiggins wrote:
> Is "turn the screw to the left" an Americanism?  People over here would not
> say this, only "turn the screw anti-clockwise".  They might guess what you
> meant, but would probably ask which way is that.  If one thinks about it, it
> is an idiomatic construction because rotation about a symmetrical axis does
 not
> have anything explicitly 'left' to it.

This might be an American convention, but it's just as arbitrary as
"clockwise/counter-clockwise."  The reference to a clock is just as
idiomatic (actually more so, as I'll explain later) as using left/right.

Both cw/ccw and l/r assume a particular way of looking at the object.
"Left/right" assumes that the person is looking down the rotational axis,
at a point slightly above the rotational center, and that they are
imposing their own leftness and rightness on the object; "cw/ccw" assumes
that the person is looking down the rotational axis as before, at some
point outside the rotational center, but they are imposing a the motion of
a clock's hands on the object.

In biology and biochemistry, helices (twining vines, protein helices, DNA,
etc.) are described as being either left-handed or right-handed.  You
simply look down the axis across the top of the helix.  If a gyre of the
helix goes to the left as it moves away from you, it is left-handed and if
it goes to the right, it is right-handed.  This works no matter which end
of the helix one looks down.  Of course, this also works for any helical
object (screws, spiral staircases, etc.).

For a language which is meant to be idiom-neutral, the reference to a
particular time-keeping artifact (which is being rapidly replaced by
digital devices anyway) as a way of expressing rotational motion seems a
bit absurd.  It seems more likely that potential speakers of Lojban will
be familiar with the concept of "left" and "right," since all of them will
probably be bilaterally symmetrical, whereas not all of them may have
observed the motion of the hands of an old-fashioned clock.

Peter Schuerman                                 plschuerman@ucdavis.edu