Do we really need West and South when we can use negative North and negative East?

  • 1rre
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    26 days ago

    anti-north-northeast doesn’t sound unreasonable, but that’s being logical instead of just thinking about two directions, as written in text, as OP is

      • 1rre
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        26 days ago

        In all cases, 2 at most.

        North
        North-north-east
        North-east
        North-east-east
        East
        Anti-north-east-east
        Anti-north-east
        Anti-north-north-east (south-north-east is impossible so the second anti would be redundant)
        Anti-north
        Anti-east-anti-north-north (reversed word order to distinguish it further)
        Anti-east-anti-north
        Anti-east-east-anti-north
        Anti-east
        Anti-east-east-north
        Anti-east-north
        Anti-east-north-north

        • Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          25 days ago

          Anti-north-north-east (south-north-east is impossible so the second anti would be redundant)

          These extra complications make it even more unusable that the anti thing itself LOL

          • 1rre
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            25 days ago

            I was assuming a conlang situation where “north” referred more to the axis, rather than the direction.

            Anti-north-north would be more “reversed-vertical-vertical” meaning it’s reversed vertical (south), and closer to the vertical axis than the horizontal axis. North would just be “vertical” without being reversed.

            • Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              25 days ago

              I don’t know what you are even talking about (and too lazy to put it into a translator now).

              But I know that North and South are terms that must be usable for everybody. So, especially for such people who don’t know what you are even talking about.

              • 1rre
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                25 days ago

                Essentially: it’s not designed as a change from North/East/South/West, it’s designed as a from-scratch way to refer to those directions.

                The sun rises in the East and sets in the West, so let’s say East is “Sun” and West is “Setting-Sun.”

                Polaris/The North Star is in the North, so let’s call that direction “Star” and the other direction “No-Star.”

                When you say “Setting-Sun-Sun-Star,” you’re saying the direction is more similar to the path the sun takes through the sky than it is to the North Star, and in the direction the sun sets.

                16 directions is pretty arbitrary anyway though, usually 8 is enough and then you don’t have the confusion of repeated words.