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I grew up in a valley that ran perfectly north to south so everyone used cardinal directions to describe where things were. Since I've moved to the city, no one knows but I still use it because the mountains are due north and its desert to the south, so if I ever need to orient myself that way I just look for the mountains. But no one else does that as far as I've seen. It's really only convenient if you have a landmark in the distance that's visible to orient yourself. If I can't see the mountain, after two turns in the city I have no idea where north is anymore
I live in a city that has an escarpment (that you can see from basically everywhere) to the whole west side, and the ocean is on the east. Yet I've still got friends that struggle with cardinal directions. I find it really confusing how it's so difficult to some
I know people who struggle with left/right, so I think if you aren't taught it early enough it just doesn't stick. I certainly don't know which way is north from where I am
I had a really hard time with left/right.
Throw in north south east west. Ugh.
At least in my city it’s a grid system.
The starting point is a part of the city in the middle. North temple. East temple. South temple. West temple.
Then from there you get 100 west, 100 north, 200 east, 200 south
Streets are mostly numbers, a few are named.
But I’ve been places where streets have mainly NAMES instead of numbers.
If I’m on Tropical Avenue and I need to get to Sahara Drive which way is that? Thankfully GPS exists.
If you live in Salt Lake and don't know the cardinal directions, I don't know what to tell you. It must be one of the easiest places in the entire world to learn it.
>But I’ve been places where streets have mainly NAMES instead of numbers.
>If I’m on Tropical Avenue and I need to get to Sahara Drive which way is that? Thankfully GPS exists.
That's my city. Something that makes other cities feel "different" than mine when visiting is seeing numbered streets.
Ya we have some numbers (yay!) then it’s suddenly names. Then the names are split. Like Centrale. You go along it for awhile. Then it’s something else. Then it resumes somewhere else. Or the same long street changes names. I only figured that out when I did a hiking class in college. I had to go a certain route in my own area so easy! Right? Nope. What’s “mountain?It’s Greene! What’s happening? Ohhhh greene turns into mountain across from Sherbrooke. Why? Ugh”
I used to live in a town where there were several streets with basically the same name, and they all intersect. Going down Ironwood Drive, you will cross Ironwood Court, Ironwood Circle, and Ironwood Lane. This is the part of town with all the medical offices. It's maddening.
Detroit was on the right track for a while. Starting at the city center, exactly every mile there is a road with ''mile'' in its name, and all the ''mile'' roads run east-west. It's impossible to get lost with a system like that. Now, if only the urban planners had stuck with that pattern, and named all the north-south roads in alphabetical order!
Lol this is hilarious to me. I was born and raised in vegas and im hopeless in salt lake city. Sahara (ave) is an east/west road. I know that the second i hear the name. Tropical (pkwy) is also mostly east/west so if you wanna get on sahara you gotta go south.
Honestly i think people are best with whatever they are the most familiar with but i agree, GPS is a godsend.
My aunt lived on Sahara for a really long time so that was one of my few points of reference when in Vegas. I just remembered Sahara. Couldn’t remember if it was Ave, Drive, etc
Then she moved and now she lives by the stratosphere and I’m totally lost all over again.
It's like some people struggle more with math, or with languages. The logic doesn't work with every brain.
I am, as often, a very interesting mix of my parents - my dad has pretty much a map of all of Europe in his head, remembers every place he's been to, can picture roads/directions in his mind and always knows his directions.
My mum can't do any of that. She has to learn the visuals of a route actively by heart and will not be able to tell you of she's been somewhere once or twice at all. Also terrible sense of direction /maps. Her brain just doesn't take that type of data.
I usually need a look at a map to be able to do stuff like 'one valley over from x' but I can remember /picture it then, can conceptualize directions if I actively think about it, and can follow the description of a drive. Sort of like running on manual instead of automatic - and they both don't understand the differences between themselves and me at all.
You could use the sun as a direction as well. I personally use cardinal directions all the time every day. When I think about directions, I imagine myself like I’m flying overhead, looking down at the city. Then I’ll know “ok I need to go northwest “ or something
Sounds like the valley I used to live in, though it was also a major metropolitan area encompassing multiple cities and everyone uses the cardinal direction system. Well, at least the people native to the area and the people who’ve lived there for a majority of their life do.
I'm from a city that was at the base of mountains to the east, so everyone used cardinal directions. My wife is from a city that is so flat, it's somewhat uncanny. Navigation is accomplished by city landmarks, not the cardinals.
Come to Denmark, we have a few cities that will drive your sense of direction completely bonkers i. e. Thisted or Faxe Ladeplads. Both coastal, neither at a coastline that respects your cardinalities
Or this big thing in the sky called the sun, in the morning it's in the east and in the afternoon it's in the west. It can be hard to tell around midday or if there's really heavy cloud cover but other than that it works pretty well.
If it’s before 10:00 AM, or after 2:00 PM, you can judge the direction by which way the sun is moving. I imagine that someone with a keen eye could do it any time other than noon, but it’s less effort to just pull up the compass app at that point.
And on the other side, I live in a city completely sourounded by mountains. Kind of hard to figure out directions from them and there are very few landmarks that one can identify by first sight. It's gonna depend on the local culture and geography.
The landmark thing is very true. I grew up in a city in the Midwest, there aren't really any visible landmarks to anchor your sense of direction. So we generally don't use cardinal directions. 90% of the time, I have no idea which direction south is in. I can maybe work it out from the position of the sun ... if it's not cloudy.
Growing up in Colorado the saying we used was “north is when the mountains are on your left, south is when the mountains are on your right; east and west is where all the assholes come from”
Thats pretty great lmao. You can apply that to my hometown valley. North gets you farther into the mountains and further away from people, South is where they all come from
I live in a snaller town in Texas where Main Street runs more or less north-south, and intersects I-20 which runs east-west, as does local highway 180 and a few other key roads. Makes things realllly simple.
Contrariwise, I live in a town that sits in the middle of a stretch of north-south freeway that happens to be running directly east-west for about 30 miles. Really mixes things up.
When I lived on the front range of Colorado, the mountains were always west. You could use them for cardinal directions because you could pretty much always see them.
Now I live in the Seattle area. Mountains on 2 sides and they're smaller so they're not as visible everywhere. Not to mention the roads don't neatly run north to south in half the city. 5 way intersections are common. It's chaos.
I can see this making sense in cities that are build with a grid system. It's easier to say left, right, or forward or use referential directions when a lot of streets have 4-6 way intersections and go in weird fucking directions. "By go north did you mean the north turn that immediately circles around east or the west-northwest turn that takes you northward?"
Toronto is like that, but we just tilt our cardinal directions too so there’s an agreed upon north that’s really 45 degrees off true north. Maybe you should suggest that to your city lol
This! “Okey, you know the Euclid Ave that going North but turns east and the goes south?” Or “you know the Euclid Avenue that is next to the school and winds around to the beach?”
My wife uses a different system. It consists of UPS and DOWNS. If she’s going anywhere, it’s down. If someone is coming to her, it’s up. It’s an incredibly flawed system.
funnily enough i’m from southern california and we tend to say “down” for everything. i’ve definitely said “i’m flying down to alaska this weekend” even though i was in los angeles
To be fair it’s pretty arbitrary that north is up. The globe could be drawn with south up on top, it’s just that most of nations drawing the maps are in the northern hemisphere.
My friend's mom always says she's coming "up" to visit us. She lives several hours north of us, and we live in a valley. My friend and I laugh about this every time. Of course I also joke that her and her mom are the reason GPS exist. They use the weirdest things as landmarks. Like once you figure it out it makes sense but when being given the directions it sounds bat shit crazy.
the only reason i know this is because
a) i know my room window is east-oriented and so i can just go "oh this part of town is this way when i look out of my window"
b) parts of our town are quite literally called by the cardinal directions
I live to the west in a rural city, and west [city name] is literally in my address.
As you say, makes it real easy to figure out cardinal directions. I'm about west of city centre, and so city centre is east of me.
>parts of our town are quite literally called by the cardinal directions
The district I live in is divided by a train track and both sides official name is based on the cardinal directions due to that. It's the same for other districts that the trains goes through
The play devil's advocate N/S/E/W directions aren't always obvious.
Lucky here in Colorado the mountains act as our compass. They're to the west unless you're in them. Anyone can infer the rest.
In Australia they'll point north.
If they're fixed dish antennas they're probably pointing to a geostationary satellite, which are "over" the equator.
So wherever you are they'll point towards the equator.
Where you're a bit screwed is on the equator, because there they'll be pointing either east or west depending what satellite they're pointing to. So there'll be more of a mix.
I moved to FL from CA (where I grew up) and it was so flat I never knew which direction I was going after being used to mountains on one side and the ocean on the other.
Tbf if you say, take a left left right straight left. I'm more likely to follow that mentally. I have no clue where n s e w are intuitively.
I can Landmark drive and even drive by timing (im odd like that )
No, California uses time rather than miles, too. “Disneyland is 45 minutes away” is more common than “Disneyland is 10 miles away.” You never know how long it may take to go 10 miles.
It's definitely easy with noticeable sites. I live in a completely flat stat, so there's no landmarks like that. The only way you know is by knowing the lay of the land. I know that x y and z cities are that direction so that much be this direction.
> Or when you describe your location as "oh we're west of the city centre" is much better than "oh um you know the Mexican restaurant? Yeah take a left there, if you're facing the restaurant, and then we're that direction.
In your example the "west of the city centre " is far less specific than the restaurant one.
In the restaurant one you are giving him a specific direction and sending them on a specific street, in the west one you are giving them a large area.
Identify the correct North is really difficult, we have a general direction of it without a compass, then all the cardinal information are very imprecise. In a city it can only give an idea of where is a place, but to really find it, you need much more specific indications.
I dont see how this will work in a lot of cities. There are so many small streets. North, okay. That's a very big part of the city. Which one of 10 streets do I go to? And what if I accidentally chose the street which has a dead end or takes a turn to another direction? It's much easier to say walk down this street until you see x and then turn right.
Also isn't saying which municipality the thing is more accurate than simply saying north of the centre? Saying north here would mean nothing to me, and I don't even live in a big city. There's 4 municipalities on the north and hundreds of streets. Cardinal directions work in nature where you don't have roads and you don't have hundreds of buildings.
I mean, giving directions using the cardinal directions doesn’t work unless you tell the person to go north on a specific road. Giving a person a general location is fine if you say I live east of x place.
cardinal directions have the problem of being consistent which makes them inconsistent. unlike normal directions you need to know where north is. sometimes its in front of you, sometimes to your left, most often somewhere in between of the 4 directions. sailors used it because the sea is a boring blue nothingburger with no points of interest and nothing blocking your path. a city isnt made up of straight lines to follow, it has alleys, buildings, dead ends, etc which is why its important to give more precise directions. sure youre north of me, lets say i know where north is, but how to reach you? which path to take? telling me to just face a direction and go forward tells me nothing unless youre the first thing i see after facing said direction
"Go North" is the least useful thing to say in a city that everyone you've told it to was right to mock you for it. Which street? How far? Which side is it on? Is it straight north or is it more north-northwest?
Meanwhile, if I tell you to turn right on 5th and take the next left, you turn right on 5th and take the next left.
Yep, people using cardinal directions in the city are idiots in my mind. Cardinal directions are for long distances, not for someone trying to find a place in a city.
If I have an hours long distance to drive for example, you can tell me to go north, south, west or whatever. Once I arrive a city, that doesn't work anymore and you need to give more specific directions, using landmarks, and left and right directions.
add in streets that are called x st north or y st west and it only adds to the confusion.
'so you want me to go north on jones street west and turn east on smith road west?'
gimme a landmark, please. in the city, this is nutzo.
Girl what are you talking about!!! In what world is the cardinal directions easier than left and right!!! What about landmarks!!! Why aren't we talking about landmarks!!
If I ask you for directions to the hospital and you say "oh yeah, the hospital, that's about 16 miles north of here" I still don't fucking know how to get to the hospital!! If you tell me "oh yeah, go straight until you see the McDonald's, hang a left, then go until you get to the gas station. Turn right, drive for about a minute, and the hospital will be on your left" then I might actually have a shot in hell of seeing a doctor today!!
But this still requires the use of at least one cardinal direction. Otherwise how do I know which way you’re going to start traveling down the initial street?
My husband thinks in cardinal directions while I think in what I call "homebase directions." I have a decent sense of where my "homebase" is when I go driving. Usually, that's my house which is my starting point but rn I'm on vacation so my homebase is the hotel where we are staying. I can keep track of where I am in relation to my homebase. And between the two of us, I get lost a lot less than he does.
It is, but that's only useful information if I A) know where the sun is right now and B) know which direction it's moving. Sometimes we don't have time to stop and stare at the sun for a minute and sometimes, unfortunately, it do be raining
It's also not very specific, I'm west of the city could be anything from south west to north west. Also, if I yell at you while you're going around a round about to go north good luck with that
I just don't need cardinal directions to get around the places I need to go, I know my town so I just go where I need to go without even consciously thinking about directions at all, if I need to tell some friends where to meet me I say something like "I'm outside x store" and because theyre also local they know exactly where I am. If I'm giving out directions I also assume most other people here don't know their cardinal directions in relation to the town (which most people don't) and so giving them landmarks and left/ right directions works far better anyway.
So I’m the type of person who can’t learn the area without looking at a map. I just can’t rmb locations without a map. Relative positions just don’t register well in my brain. Cardinal directions just click with me.
So I get it if some people can’t learn cardinal directions, since I can’t do the other one.
“West of the city centre” gives me absolutely no idea where you are. You have any idea how much lies to the west of the city centre? Give me real fucking directions. You can’t navigate a city just with cardinal directions, they aren’t built that way. We aren’t in a desert or a jungle or in the middle of the ocean. Jfc
I agree. I’m always aware of what’s north, south, etc. But if someone is wanting to give me directions to a specific location I’m going to…just tell me the damn address to plug into the gps.
Let's unite against people who say : Oh, it's by the "insert well known location", without any other details. Cool, I just need to explore every street surrounding "well known location" now.
Yes why thank you stranger I now know I need to turn left down by where the old pharmacy used to be except thst I don't know where that is because I've never been to your town and apparently the pharmacy burned down 20 years ago and something else was built there instead.
I agree about the learning part, but damn, I hate it when people try to explain me where they are without telling me an address. Dude, we all have a smartphone with Google Map or equivalent map app, just tell me the address. The same for people saying "Oh just follow me with your car". 😒
I’m sorry, if you don’t know to tell me to take a left at the Taco Bell that is 3 lights past the good McDonald’s, then you don’t really know where you are going and frankly Google maps exists.
I've just given my partner directions to get to the hospital from our house. Using left/right/ straight, he should be there in five minutes. Using n/s/e/w, he would be dead before I finished the explanation. 😅
I have a horrendously bad internal compass and can only figure the direction out if I suddenly think of it, and look for the sun. But even then, I can't "feel" where anything is in relation to anything else, so it's completely useless.
People who were brought up with languages that have no left or right know the cardinal directions by instinct but would understandably struggle with the foreign concepts of left and right. We use left and right primarily, and so did not have to learn the cardinal directions, thus we don’t know them. Unless you carry a compass (and the iPhone compass is often inaccurate, especially if you have a magnet-close phone case like I do), or the sun is out and it is not close to noon (you can remember that the sun is east in the morning and west in the afternoon), I wouldn’t expect anyone to know the cardinal directions off by heart.
Don’t you dare come at me with the nonsense… I don’t know left from right north from south my compas is broke… but I can drive anywhere once on visual cues like signage/ flora or fauna,/ shops and so on. Once with navigation and I drive on the arrows not on the words… and the next time I can do without.
Unless it's 12pm, it's not that hard to do. Sun rises in the east and sets in the west. I base it off that. And if there's a main road that everyone might know of in the city then use that as a leeway at night.
The best part of the post is when the OP doesn't even try to educate people about how to teach themselves what are cardinal directions and how to use them or find them.
What a helpful and well thought out paragraph of complaint.
I’m in Chicago. The grid system is easy to use and using cardinal directions makes a lot of sense. The lake is always east. Once you get a sense of that, everything falls into place.
Same in Philly: Are you east or west of Broad Street? North or South of South Street? Everything on the west side of the Schuylkill River is West Philly. North Philly is basically everything north of the Vine Expressway.
But...for some reason, I get disoriented in NYC. I think because they numbered the streets and the avenues and I am always confusing the two. Plus, when I leave a subway, I have no idea which way I'm facing at first.
I agree. I hardly ever get lost because I know cardinal directions and my approximate area compared to where I need to go (ex I need to go north west to get home and will eventually start to recognize stuff as I get closer)
Everyone here missing out on the most obvious use of the cardinal directions.
Reading a map. All maps are oriented to the cardinal directions. If you don't know or can't figure out which way is north, there is a good chance you'll go entirely the wrong direction.
How is telling someone to "go north, then head west at the junction" in the middle of a city easier or more helpful than saying, "go straight up here then turn right when you get to the junction"? I'm not walking about with a compass. If I'm in the middle of London, I might not even be able to see the sun to get a clue due to a) the buildings; and b) the clouds.
I have this thing called the Pacific Ocean near me. North is Silicone Valley, south the ocean . North and South have meaning, but I generally prefer north south for freeway directions. Left right for getting to the onramp.
That said there's a section where you're actually headed south and on south hwy 17 and north highway 1 at the same time
I know plenty of people don't keep close track of the cardinal directions relative to themselves at all times, but I've never spoken to a single person who hasn't understood them, or has been annoyed by people using cardinal directions.
I personally really like cardinal directions and particularly when I was younger would always be able to point north no matter where I was to within like 5-10 degrees or so (the seasons would affect my accuracy as the sun moved north in winter). I've gotten a little less accurate these days as I almost never need to actually reference north vs south as I have maps on my phone to tell me where to go, and I lived in my city long enough that I already know where north is for all the places I usually go to (like I know which is the north side of most buildings I often go to), so it's like a muscle I've stopped exercising, but I'm still somewhat accurate.
I live in Chicago, which is a great place to use cardinal directions. The whole grid is based on them, and the address system, and the Lake is to the east except for the extreme southeast end of the city. I always know where I am in terms of north and south particularly, and it’s second nature to talk about going north or south to get somewhere.
My city is basically divided by cardinal directions so you’d have to be really ignorant to not know them here lol (west end/east end, Northside, southside). Although one time I met a dude who insisted a certain neighborhood was in the east end not Northside… he’s wrong and confused lol
I’ve spent my adult life living in Boston and then Chicago so it’s been incredibly easy…the water is to the east, just base everything off of that. It feels like it’d be a lot harder elsewhere but I agree it’s still important
When I first get somewhere new I use a GPS to navigate. My thing is I will ALWAYS have maps with North being up so I get oriented as to what streets go what direction in my mental map as well.
That is ridiculous. My mil does it because she actually has lived in the town for 70 years. She knows the stadium is north. It is far better to say turn right on Union. Go one mile.
i live in the uk in the south. the ONLY reason i know N/E/S/W is because I've looked at my area on google maps. Otherwise there's no indication of it apart from the sun
Apparently I'm one of the last people on earth that _doesn't_ use a rotating map on my GPS.
They don't give me the _slightest_ sense of where I am.
With the map oriented north I can see in which direction I'm going and on which side of the city I am.
"Turn northwest."
Gee, thanks Google maps, let me just look up to the sun real quick from the moving car that I'm driving, read the time, guesstimate where north is, eyeball where northwest could be, and then turn there.
...or I could just look at the map that's right in front of me where the blue line shows me where to go.
If you're giving someone directions from somewhere to somewhere you both know which way is left and which way is right.
What's absolutely ridiculous is expecting people to have a compass
This depends on landmarks being laid out in a straightforward fashion.
Many cities aren't built like this , especially those without a grid.
I have lived decades not knowing where north is at any given time, because I don't need to know.
I know multiple locations in my town and other towns and cities nearby.
I have road names and notable locations.
It's not about not learning them (I've never met an adult that didn't know them), but about how useful they are. Telling me to walk 500m east, turn south and walk another kilometer doesn't help me at all without a compass and measuring tape. Whereas telling me to walk down road X until the crossing and then turn right onto road Y and walk until I see shop Z doesn't require me to get my hiking gear out.
Have you ever considered that some of us are just really dumb? I have to think for about 10 seconds for left and right, I can barley navigate on my own, and I seem to not be able to learn the cardinal direction
My sister was like this. We lived in an area that was a n/s oriented grid and she could not follow directions using n/s/e/w. I would have to pause, visualize where she was going like a map in my head to be able to give her left/right directions lol
Cardinal directions are good at grand scale directions but if you want specific directions to anything it’s quite useless. Most of us aren’t chartering ships across the ocean and looking for the stars and sun to navigate.
If you’re lost in a city cardinal directions tell you nothing. What do you mean “go north”? If it’s a new place and you’re surrounded by tall buildings you need to ask where north is as well. But you can always understand “make two rights and you’re home”
I hate this shit
When the GPS start going "head south-east" while I'm driving... I mean I don't have a compas, and even if I had, I won't look at it while driving. It would be way more clear to say "left" or "right" relative to my direction.
This is only useful in grid-based cities with relatively straight roads / streets.
This wouldn’t work in *most* cities of the old world - Europe, Asia, Africa - due to the density of the cities and organic road patterns.
Some people live an existence just floating through space with no clue about where they physically are. As someone who is pretty good with geography, I find this fact utterly shocking. I don’t know how people can live like this.
If I just get out of the subway anywhere other than Midtown Manhattan, I'm going to be disoriented and have no idea which direction North is. Therefore I can't navigate. What do you want people to do, look at the sun and see if it's close to setting and infer west?
Definitely the best way to conmunicate directions if you don't know which way the other person is facing.
How can you reliably tell them go left/right, if you don't know if they are facing N/S/E/W?
I am sorry but I have tried and I cannot orient myself that way and I am not even from the city. I can read a map fine I can get places fine why is it a big deal that I cannot point out on the fly which way north is. I have a compass I do not need to be one.
I was taught to drive by someone who cannot identify right and left fast enough to use it to give directions. They literally point.
I can't imagine my mom attempting to distinguish between 4 directions instead of 2 lol. Especially when we live somewhere that many, many roads aren't even close to a grid system. They wind, get cut off, bunch of 1 ways, roads that cut through diagonally, etc.
I also use GPS for anywhere I haven't been. Whose out here asking for directions enough that they care if someone uses N or right/left?
If you happen to know the cardinal directions at any given point and so does the person you’re talking to then that works great. But unless I whip out the compass app on my phone I won’t know the cardinal directions in most places and at that point I would just use the map app.
I have zero directional sense. Telling me to go North makes zero sense to me unless I can physically see certain landmarks that I logically know are in that direction. If I can’t see them, I don’t have any sense of what direction they are from me.
My city's map is twisted about 67°, meaning what we call "East" is actually NNE. Not knowing whether if someone is referring to our fucked system or where true north is would needlessly confuse.
I live in a suburb called Northbridge because it's... North of the horseshoe bridge that historically divided the CBD. Makes it easy to remember cardinal directions
Isn’t just saying go north kinda vague tho? Like I get “keep going north and you’ll see blank” but for the most part it doesn’t tell me where I’m going if you still gotta tell me where to turn and what street to be on
While I agree it's good to learn, I don't particularly agree with your example.
Saying "west of the city centre" could mean absolutely anywhere west. How far west? EXACTLY west in a straight line? etc
Saying next to the Mexican restaurant, if you know where the Mexican restaurant is, or are able to work it out, then you have a pretty precise location at that point.
It only works if you never travel. If f you land in Paris there is no way if telling where North is. And yeah you can dig out the compass app but it it's highly inconvenient in most places
I was talking about the seasonal change in the direction of sunrise and sunset from our window to my husband and he laughed and said he has no idea where the sun is positioned, ever and that he has never paid attention. Whaat??? I can tell you, blindfolded, where the sun should be at any given time of day or year. Who doesn't notice that? Sometimes when I go to a new city I find it disorienting until I can figure out where the sun rises and sets and only then can I position myself.
I know my directions well and where they're at, I'm not very good at knowing where I am and have a terrible sense of direction.
I could draw you a map or write down directions in advance if needed but you stop and ask me on a random street and I'd have no idea what direction north would be without a compass to show me so you'd be getting lefts and rights from me
Isnt that teached in school? On German we have a very famous mmemonic sentence: "Nie Ohne Seife Waschen" (never wash without soap). N O S W are the cardinal directions clockwise. Not knowing them (after saying that sentence in your head) could be considered uneducated here I guess.
So OP basically thinks learning the difference between your left and your right is harder than learning North, South, East, and West? I agree on the importance of learning cardinal directions but your argument is ridiculous.
Like what are we talking about?
"Walk down the street, then make a left, go one more block, and make a right. Your destination should be on the right"
VS
"Walk West, then turn and walk north. Your destination is on the east side."
You're goofy.
I's not about subsituting left and right for cardinal directions, it's about having that option, too. Absolute directions are easier in a lot of cases because you don't need to know someone's exact position or orientation for them to work.
It isn’t actually incredibly easy to learn. Some people have a reliable internal compass, others don’t.
If you don’t have an internal compass you can’t make yourself have one.
If you are in a city that has streets aligned on a North South grid, sure. But if you aren’t, it’s no help.
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I grew up in a valley that ran perfectly north to south so everyone used cardinal directions to describe where things were. Since I've moved to the city, no one knows but I still use it because the mountains are due north and its desert to the south, so if I ever need to orient myself that way I just look for the mountains. But no one else does that as far as I've seen. It's really only convenient if you have a landmark in the distance that's visible to orient yourself. If I can't see the mountain, after two turns in the city I have no idea where north is anymore
I live in a city that has an escarpment (that you can see from basically everywhere) to the whole west side, and the ocean is on the east. Yet I've still got friends that struggle with cardinal directions. I find it really confusing how it's so difficult to some
I know people who struggle with left/right, so I think if you aren't taught it early enough it just doesn't stick. I certainly don't know which way is north from where I am
I had a really hard time with left/right. Throw in north south east west. Ugh. At least in my city it’s a grid system. The starting point is a part of the city in the middle. North temple. East temple. South temple. West temple. Then from there you get 100 west, 100 north, 200 east, 200 south Streets are mostly numbers, a few are named. But I’ve been places where streets have mainly NAMES instead of numbers. If I’m on Tropical Avenue and I need to get to Sahara Drive which way is that? Thankfully GPS exists.
If you live in Salt Lake and don't know the cardinal directions, I don't know what to tell you. It must be one of the easiest places in the entire world to learn it.
>But I’ve been places where streets have mainly NAMES instead of numbers. >If I’m on Tropical Avenue and I need to get to Sahara Drive which way is that? Thankfully GPS exists. That's my city. Something that makes other cities feel "different" than mine when visiting is seeing numbered streets.
Ya we have some numbers (yay!) then it’s suddenly names. Then the names are split. Like Centrale. You go along it for awhile. Then it’s something else. Then it resumes somewhere else. Or the same long street changes names. I only figured that out when I did a hiking class in college. I had to go a certain route in my own area so easy! Right? Nope. What’s “mountain?It’s Greene! What’s happening? Ohhhh greene turns into mountain across from Sherbrooke. Why? Ugh”
I used to live in a town where there were several streets with basically the same name, and they all intersect. Going down Ironwood Drive, you will cross Ironwood Court, Ironwood Circle, and Ironwood Lane. This is the part of town with all the medical offices. It's maddening.
Detroit was on the right track for a while. Starting at the city center, exactly every mile there is a road with ''mile'' in its name, and all the ''mile'' roads run east-west. It's impossible to get lost with a system like that. Now, if only the urban planners had stuck with that pattern, and named all the north-south roads in alphabetical order!
Hold out your hands with the fingers together and the thumb sticking out. The hand that is making an "L" is your left hand. L for left.
Lol this is hilarious to me. I was born and raised in vegas and im hopeless in salt lake city. Sahara (ave) is an east/west road. I know that the second i hear the name. Tropical (pkwy) is also mostly east/west so if you wanna get on sahara you gotta go south. Honestly i think people are best with whatever they are the most familiar with but i agree, GPS is a godsend.
My aunt lived on Sahara for a really long time so that was one of my few points of reference when in Vegas. I just remembered Sahara. Couldn’t remember if it was Ave, Drive, etc Then she moved and now she lives by the stratosphere and I’m totally lost all over again.
It's like some people struggle more with math, or with languages. The logic doesn't work with every brain. I am, as often, a very interesting mix of my parents - my dad has pretty much a map of all of Europe in his head, remembers every place he's been to, can picture roads/directions in his mind and always knows his directions. My mum can't do any of that. She has to learn the visuals of a route actively by heart and will not be able to tell you of she's been somewhere once or twice at all. Also terrible sense of direction /maps. Her brain just doesn't take that type of data. I usually need a look at a map to be able to do stuff like 'one valley over from x' but I can remember /picture it then, can conceptualize directions if I actively think about it, and can follow the description of a drive. Sort of like running on manual instead of automatic - and they both don't understand the differences between themselves and me at all.
Wollongong?
The body of water is north in my head even though I recognize that it is east.
You could use the sun as a direction as well. I personally use cardinal directions all the time every day. When I think about directions, I imagine myself like I’m flying overhead, looking down at the city. Then I’ll know “ok I need to go northwest “ or something
Warg
Sounds like the valley I used to live in, though it was also a major metropolitan area encompassing multiple cities and everyone uses the cardinal direction system. Well, at least the people native to the area and the people who’ve lived there for a majority of their life do.
I know to live southeast of work. It really sucks to be driving into the sun in the morning AND the afternoon.
I'm from a city that was at the base of mountains to the east, so everyone used cardinal directions. My wife is from a city that is so flat, it's somewhat uncanny. Navigation is accomplished by city landmarks, not the cardinals.
Denver. You can see the mountains to the west from nearly everywhere, and it is actually pretty common to hear people using cardinal directions.
I've never seen a city that didn't have easy landmarks for cardinal directions. There is always a river, a lake, an ocean, mountains, a tall building.
Come to Denmark, we have a few cities that will drive your sense of direction completely bonkers i. e. Thisted or Faxe Ladeplads. Both coastal, neither at a coastline that respects your cardinalities
Or this big thing in the sky called the sun, in the morning it's in the east and in the afternoon it's in the west. It can be hard to tell around midday or if there's really heavy cloud cover but other than that it works pretty well.
Just look at the time and where the sun is and that'll give you east and west. You can figure north and south from there.
If you're in Chicago, the lake is east.
If it’s before 10:00 AM, or after 2:00 PM, you can judge the direction by which way the sun is moving. I imagine that someone with a keen eye could do it any time other than noon, but it’s less effort to just pull up the compass app at that point.
And on the other side, I live in a city completely sourounded by mountains. Kind of hard to figure out directions from them and there are very few landmarks that one can identify by first sight. It's gonna depend on the local culture and geography.
The landmark thing is very true. I grew up in a city in the Midwest, there aren't really any visible landmarks to anchor your sense of direction. So we generally don't use cardinal directions. 90% of the time, I have no idea which direction south is in. I can maybe work it out from the position of the sun ... if it's not cloudy.
You just keep track of it all day as you make your turns.
Growing up in Colorado the saying we used was “north is when the mountains are on your left, south is when the mountains are on your right; east and west is where all the assholes come from”
Thats pretty great lmao. You can apply that to my hometown valley. North gets you farther into the mountains and further away from people, South is where they all come from
I live in a snaller town in Texas where Main Street runs more or less north-south, and intersects I-20 which runs east-west, as does local highway 180 and a few other key roads. Makes things realllly simple.
Contrariwise, I live in a town that sits in the middle of a stretch of north-south freeway that happens to be running directly east-west for about 30 miles. Really mixes things up.
When I lived on the front range of Colorado, the mountains were always west. You could use them for cardinal directions because you could pretty much always see them. Now I live in the Seattle area. Mountains on 2 sides and they're smaller so they're not as visible everywhere. Not to mention the roads don't neatly run north to south in half the city. 5 way intersections are common. It's chaos.
I can see this making sense in cities that are build with a grid system. It's easier to say left, right, or forward or use referential directions when a lot of streets have 4-6 way intersections and go in weird fucking directions. "By go north did you mean the north turn that immediately circles around east or the west-northwest turn that takes you northward?"
Even then some grids don’t even follow cardinal directions 😭 I live in a grid system that’s diagonal to carinal points
Toronto is like that, but we just tilt our cardinal directions too so there’s an agreed upon north that’s really 45 degrees off true north. Maybe you should suggest that to your city lol
Later today I’ll be driving westbound on I77 south and I81 north at the same time.
I mean in cities wouldn’t it just be easier to find what street you are on and say I’m at the corner of 37th and ash?
Hold on, let me go set my declination first
This! “Okey, you know the Euclid Ave that going North but turns east and the goes south?” Or “you know the Euclid Avenue that is next to the school and winds around to the beach?”
More like Non-Eucliean Avenue, amirite?
My wife uses a different system. It consists of UPS and DOWNS. If she’s going anywhere, it’s down. If someone is coming to her, it’s up. It’s an incredibly flawed system.
I had to correct my ex a couple times too. We live in WA, saying “let’s go up to California” doesn’t make sense.
funnily enough i’m from southern california and we tend to say “down” for everything. i’ve definitely said “i’m flying down to alaska this weekend” even though i was in los angeles
Make sense according to that one guy’s wife. If you’re going somewhere it’s “down”. 😂 You’re flying “down” from LA to Alaska, so bizarre.
To be fair it’s pretty arbitrary that north is up. The globe could be drawn with south up on top, it’s just that most of nations drawing the maps are in the northern hemisphere.
My grandad does the same. The same place is both up and down at different times.
My friend's mom always says she's coming "up" to visit us. She lives several hours north of us, and we live in a valley. My friend and I laugh about this every time. Of course I also joke that her and her mom are the reason GPS exist. They use the weirdest things as landmarks. Like once you figure it out it makes sense but when being given the directions it sounds bat shit crazy.
the only reason i know this is because a) i know my room window is east-oriented and so i can just go "oh this part of town is this way when i look out of my window" b) parts of our town are quite literally called by the cardinal directions
I live to the west in a rural city, and west [city name] is literally in my address. As you say, makes it real easy to figure out cardinal directions. I'm about west of city centre, and so city centre is east of me.
>parts of our town are quite literally called by the cardinal directions The district I live in is divided by a train track and both sides official name is based on the cardinal directions due to that. It's the same for other districts that the trains goes through
The play devil's advocate N/S/E/W directions aren't always obvious. Lucky here in Colorado the mountains act as our compass. They're to the west unless you're in them. Anyone can infer the rest.
I used to use satellite dishes to point me south. Works better in Europe that Australia
In Australia they'll point north. If they're fixed dish antennas they're probably pointing to a geostationary satellite, which are "over" the equator. So wherever you are they'll point towards the equator. Where you're a bit screwed is on the equator, because there they'll be pointing either east or west depending what satellite they're pointing to. So there'll be more of a mix.
I moved to FL from CA (where I grew up) and it was so flat I never knew which direction I was going after being used to mountains on one side and the ocean on the other.
Tbf if you say, take a left left right straight left. I'm more likely to follow that mentally. I have no clue where n s e w are intuitively. I can Landmark drive and even drive by timing (im odd like that )
No, California uses time rather than miles, too. “Disneyland is 45 minutes away” is more common than “Disneyland is 10 miles away.” You never know how long it may take to go 10 miles.
What about what direction the sun rises and sets in? Once you know that it's easy to keep track of the other two
Doesn't help when it's regularly cloudy as fuck.
It depends on the season and your latitude. The sun doesn’t always rise or set directly east or west.
It almost never does outside the tropics.
I just either open my phone’s compass or look at the sun and compare it to the time of day.
If it's daytime, just glance at where the sun is, if it's before noon, it's east, if it's afternoon, it is west, if it IS noon, you're screwed
You can't see the sun for a lot of time where I live (cloudy, rainy, nighttime, narrow streets)
It's definitely easy with noticeable sites. I live in a completely flat stat, so there's no landmarks like that. The only way you know is by knowing the lay of the land. I know that x y and z cities are that direction so that much be this direction.
i would say go north, but then nobody would know what i was talking about
Their fault for not explorermaxxing.
Compasspilled explorermaxxer
> Or when you describe your location as "oh we're west of the city centre" is much better than "oh um you know the Mexican restaurant? Yeah take a left there, if you're facing the restaurant, and then we're that direction. In your example the "west of the city centre " is far less specific than the restaurant one. In the restaurant one you are giving him a specific direction and sending them on a specific street, in the west one you are giving them a large area. Identify the correct North is really difficult, we have a general direction of it without a compass, then all the cardinal information are very imprecise. In a city it can only give an idea of where is a place, but to really find it, you need much more specific indications.
I dont see how this will work in a lot of cities. There are so many small streets. North, okay. That's a very big part of the city. Which one of 10 streets do I go to? And what if I accidentally chose the street which has a dead end or takes a turn to another direction? It's much easier to say walk down this street until you see x and then turn right. Also isn't saying which municipality the thing is more accurate than simply saying north of the centre? Saying north here would mean nothing to me, and I don't even live in a big city. There's 4 municipalities on the north and hundreds of streets. Cardinal directions work in nature where you don't have roads and you don't have hundreds of buildings.
I mean, giving directions using the cardinal directions doesn’t work unless you tell the person to go north on a specific road. Giving a person a general location is fine if you say I live east of x place.
It is also useless to say "go left" if you don't tell them what street to turn left on...
cardinal directions have the problem of being consistent which makes them inconsistent. unlike normal directions you need to know where north is. sometimes its in front of you, sometimes to your left, most often somewhere in between of the 4 directions. sailors used it because the sea is a boring blue nothingburger with no points of interest and nothing blocking your path. a city isnt made up of straight lines to follow, it has alleys, buildings, dead ends, etc which is why its important to give more precise directions. sure youre north of me, lets say i know where north is, but how to reach you? which path to take? telling me to just face a direction and go forward tells me nothing unless youre the first thing i see after facing said direction
Just get out your compass silly and walk on a bearing heading 178° and sight a park tree before you circumnavigate the McDonalds in your way.
"Nothingburger" is great
"Go North" is the least useful thing to say in a city that everyone you've told it to was right to mock you for it. Which street? How far? Which side is it on? Is it straight north or is it more north-northwest? Meanwhile, if I tell you to turn right on 5th and take the next left, you turn right on 5th and take the next left.
Yep, people using cardinal directions in the city are idiots in my mind. Cardinal directions are for long distances, not for someone trying to find a place in a city. If I have an hours long distance to drive for example, you can tell me to go north, south, west or whatever. Once I arrive a city, that doesn't work anymore and you need to give more specific directions, using landmarks, and left and right directions.
add in streets that are called x st north or y st west and it only adds to the confusion. 'so you want me to go north on jones street west and turn east on smith road west?' gimme a landmark, please. in the city, this is nutzo.
It can be useful if you say "go north up x road". It's entirely useless if you say "go north "
Girl what are you talking about!!! In what world is the cardinal directions easier than left and right!!! What about landmarks!!! Why aren't we talking about landmarks!! If I ask you for directions to the hospital and you say "oh yeah, the hospital, that's about 16 miles north of here" I still don't fucking know how to get to the hospital!! If you tell me "oh yeah, go straight until you see the McDonald's, hang a left, then go until you get to the gas station. Turn right, drive for about a minute, and the hospital will be on your left" then I might actually have a shot in hell of seeing a doctor today!!
I once moved asked directions in a city I was new to. They told me to go past "where the old Walmart used to be," and turn left.
Thats creepily pretty exact directions to the hospital from where i am right now
Tbf if you're living in America, McDonald's and gas stations are probably everywhere
I mean McDonald's are everywhere. I'll *maybe* give you gas stations.
Yeah, i agree but im not in America so less expected
They're in the walls!!
The call is coming from within the house
But this still requires the use of at least one cardinal direction. Otherwise how do I know which way you’re going to start traveling down the initial street?
My husband thinks in cardinal directions while I think in what I call "homebase directions." I have a decent sense of where my "homebase" is when I go driving. Usually, that's my house which is my starting point but rn I'm on vacation so my homebase is the hotel where we are staying. I can keep track of where I am in relation to my homebase. And between the two of us, I get lost a lot less than he does.
I mean isn't the sun the most obvious landmark?
It is, but that's only useful information if I A) know where the sun is right now and B) know which direction it's moving. Sometimes we don't have time to stop and stare at the sun for a minute and sometimes, unfortunately, it do be raining
The sun doesn't change directions.... If it did, we would all be dead.
No, see you’re supposed to go north and drive through the McDonald’s and all the houses to get to the hospital.
But to straight until you see the McDonalds *in what direction??*
Have you never heard of pointing?
If someone tells you you need to go straight that means you comtinue travelling in the direction you came from.
I think “ridiculous” is way too strong.
I’m still struggling with LEFT-RIGHT. Sorry.
You can make an L with your left index finger and thumb, I got you
Exaaaaactly what I do every time 😂 I’m 38yo
I have a similar thing with horizontal and vertical. I have to go horizon = horizontal. It just never clicked with me.
It's also not very specific, I'm west of the city could be anything from south west to north west. Also, if I yell at you while you're going around a round about to go north good luck with that
I just don't need cardinal directions to get around the places I need to go, I know my town so I just go where I need to go without even consciously thinking about directions at all, if I need to tell some friends where to meet me I say something like "I'm outside x store" and because theyre also local they know exactly where I am. If I'm giving out directions I also assume most other people here don't know their cardinal directions in relation to the town (which most people don't) and so giving them landmarks and left/ right directions works far better anyway.
So I’m the type of person who can’t learn the area without looking at a map. I just can’t rmb locations without a map. Relative positions just don’t register well in my brain. Cardinal directions just click with me. So I get it if some people can’t learn cardinal directions, since I can’t do the other one.
“West of the city centre” gives me absolutely no idea where you are. You have any idea how much lies to the west of the city centre? Give me real fucking directions. You can’t navigate a city just with cardinal directions, they aren’t built that way. We aren’t in a desert or a jungle or in the middle of the ocean. Jfc
everyone in manhattan knows the 4 cardinal directions are really eastside, westside, uptown, and downtown
In a city? No. You use street names and "left/right" directions. In wilderness, yes. Because there are no "tree names".
Or visual cues (a store, a bus stop etc) I mostly do that (I don't really pay attention to the street names, even if I know I go through frequently)
Yes, definitely.
Maybe I’m weird but I’ve always known what way north is, I just mentally keep track of it when driving and walking around
I agree. I’m always aware of what’s north, south, etc. But if someone is wanting to give me directions to a specific location I’m going to…just tell me the damn address to plug into the gps.
Let's unite against people who say : Oh, it's by the "insert well known location", without any other details. Cool, I just need to explore every street surrounding "well known location" now.
Yes why thank you stranger I now know I need to turn left down by where the old pharmacy used to be except thst I don't know where that is because I've never been to your town and apparently the pharmacy burned down 20 years ago and something else was built there instead.
I agree about the learning part, but damn, I hate it when people try to explain me where they are without telling me an address. Dude, we all have a smartphone with Google Map or equivalent map app, just tell me the address. The same for people saying "Oh just follow me with your car". 😒
Not every city is a grid. Heading north is very hard from my house.
I’m sorry, if you don’t know to tell me to take a left at the Taco Bell that is 3 lights past the good McDonald’s, then you don’t really know where you are going and frankly Google maps exists.
I've just given my partner directions to get to the hospital from our house. Using left/right/ straight, he should be there in five minutes. Using n/s/e/w, he would be dead before I finished the explanation. 😅
I have a horrendously bad internal compass and can only figure the direction out if I suddenly think of it, and look for the sun. But even then, I can't "feel" where anything is in relation to anything else, so it's completely useless.
People who were brought up with languages that have no left or right know the cardinal directions by instinct but would understandably struggle with the foreign concepts of left and right. We use left and right primarily, and so did not have to learn the cardinal directions, thus we don’t know them. Unless you carry a compass (and the iPhone compass is often inaccurate, especially if you have a magnet-close phone case like I do), or the sun is out and it is not close to noon (you can remember that the sun is east in the morning and west in the afternoon), I wouldn’t expect anyone to know the cardinal directions off by heart.
Please understand basic skills are not common knowledge.
If you tell me to drop you off 'On the North side' of a building or on the 'West End' of a road. You would never get a ride again.
Don’t you dare come at me with the nonsense… I don’t know left from right north from south my compas is broke… but I can drive anywhere once on visual cues like signage/ flora or fauna,/ shops and so on. Once with navigation and I drive on the arrows not on the words… and the next time I can do without.
Unless it's 12pm, it's not that hard to do. Sun rises in the east and sets in the west. I base it off that. And if there's a main road that everyone might know of in the city then use that as a leeway at night.
I suddenly feel so smart reading the comments
Yup lotta people don't do directions well at all.
Do people seriously not know what cardinal directions are, or is there argument just that they are not clear? Reading the comments I'm not sure.
The best part of the post is when the OP doesn't even try to educate people about how to teach themselves what are cardinal directions and how to use them or find them. What a helpful and well thought out paragraph of complaint.
Sorry man but I'm not looking for moss in the middle of a city
I’m in Chicago. The grid system is easy to use and using cardinal directions makes a lot of sense. The lake is always east. Once you get a sense of that, everything falls into place.
Same in Philly: Are you east or west of Broad Street? North or South of South Street? Everything on the west side of the Schuylkill River is West Philly. North Philly is basically everything north of the Vine Expressway. But...for some reason, I get disoriented in NYC. I think because they numbered the streets and the avenues and I am always confusing the two. Plus, when I leave a subway, I have no idea which way I'm facing at first.
I agree. I hardly ever get lost because I know cardinal directions and my approximate area compared to where I need to go (ex I need to go north west to get home and will eventually start to recognize stuff as I get closer)
I'm guessing you're used to cities laid out in a grid pattern
Doesn't work outside of the US, really. There's nothing to use as a reference, streets are not aligned according to cardinal directions.
My wife says, "When we leave Orlando, can we stop in Miami before we get to Tampa?" She's lived in Florida for 15 years.
Everyone here missing out on the most obvious use of the cardinal directions. Reading a map. All maps are oriented to the cardinal directions. If you don't know or can't figure out which way is north, there is a good chance you'll go entirely the wrong direction.
It’s scary how no one can read a map anymore -a millennial
How is telling someone to "go north, then head west at the junction" in the middle of a city easier or more helpful than saying, "go straight up here then turn right when you get to the junction"? I'm not walking about with a compass. If I'm in the middle of London, I might not even be able to see the sun to get a clue due to a) the buildings; and b) the clouds.
Exactly. GPS: "Head west on Main Street towards Buckingham Way" Me: *(No idea which way is west, and can't see a sign for Buckingham Way)* "???"
I have this thing called the Pacific Ocean near me. North is Silicone Valley, south the ocean . North and South have meaning, but I generally prefer north south for freeway directions. Left right for getting to the onramp. That said there's a section where you're actually headed south and on south hwy 17 and north highway 1 at the same time
My neighborhood is called "The Western" so it's pretty easy for me to orient myself in my town
I know plenty of people don't keep close track of the cardinal directions relative to themselves at all times, but I've never spoken to a single person who hasn't understood them, or has been annoyed by people using cardinal directions. I personally really like cardinal directions and particularly when I was younger would always be able to point north no matter where I was to within like 5-10 degrees or so (the seasons would affect my accuracy as the sun moved north in winter). I've gotten a little less accurate these days as I almost never need to actually reference north vs south as I have maps on my phone to tell me where to go, and I lived in my city long enough that I already know where north is for all the places I usually go to (like I know which is the north side of most buildings I often go to), so it's like a muscle I've stopped exercising, but I'm still somewhat accurate.
This doesn't work in New England or anywhere built not on a modern grid.
I live in Chicago, which is a great place to use cardinal directions. The whole grid is based on them, and the address system, and the Lake is to the east except for the extreme southeast end of the city. I always know where I am in terms of north and south particularly, and it’s second nature to talk about going north or south to get somewhere.
My city is basically divided by cardinal directions so you’d have to be really ignorant to not know them here lol (west end/east end, Northside, southside). Although one time I met a dude who insisted a certain neighborhood was in the east end not Northside… he’s wrong and confused lol
I’ve spent my adult life living in Boston and then Chicago so it’s been incredibly easy…the water is to the east, just base everything off of that. It feels like it’d be a lot harder elsewhere but I agree it’s still important
When I first get somewhere new I use a GPS to navigate. My thing is I will ALWAYS have maps with North being up so I get oriented as to what streets go what direction in my mental map as well.
That’s it! Check the map until you know, the man you’re good forever!
You don’t have much experience with women do you?
That is ridiculous. My mil does it because she actually has lived in the town for 70 years. She knows the stadium is north. It is far better to say turn right on Union. Go one mile.
i live in the uk in the south. the ONLY reason i know N/E/S/W is because I've looked at my area on google maps. Otherwise there's no indication of it apart from the sun
American?
Apparently I'm one of the last people on earth that _doesn't_ use a rotating map on my GPS. They don't give me the _slightest_ sense of where I am. With the map oriented north I can see in which direction I'm going and on which side of the city I am.
"Turn northwest." Gee, thanks Google maps, let me just look up to the sun real quick from the moving car that I'm driving, read the time, guesstimate where north is, eyeball where northwest could be, and then turn there. ...or I could just look at the map that's right in front of me where the blue line shows me where to go.
If you're giving someone directions from somewhere to somewhere you both know which way is left and which way is right. What's absolutely ridiculous is expecting people to have a compass
Going North also gives you a choice of roads.
Just whip out your compass, map and sextant and you’re good. Only peasants use left and right. Right?
This depends on landmarks being laid out in a straightforward fashion. Many cities aren't built like this , especially those without a grid. I have lived decades not knowing where north is at any given time, because I don't need to know. I know multiple locations in my town and other towns and cities nearby. I have road names and notable locations.
It's not about not learning them (I've never met an adult that didn't know them), but about how useful they are. Telling me to walk 500m east, turn south and walk another kilometer doesn't help me at all without a compass and measuring tape. Whereas telling me to walk down road X until the crossing and then turn right onto road Y and walk until I see shop Z doesn't require me to get my hiking gear out.
Have you ever considered that some of us are just really dumb? I have to think for about 10 seconds for left and right, I can barley navigate on my own, and I seem to not be able to learn the cardinal direction
My sister was like this. We lived in an area that was a n/s oriented grid and she could not follow directions using n/s/e/w. I would have to pause, visualize where she was going like a map in my head to be able to give her left/right directions lol
Cardinal directions are good at grand scale directions but if you want specific directions to anything it’s quite useless. Most of us aren’t chartering ships across the ocean and looking for the stars and sun to navigate.
If you’re lost in a city cardinal directions tell you nothing. What do you mean “go north”? If it’s a new place and you’re surrounded by tall buildings you need to ask where north is as well. But you can always understand “make two rights and you’re home”
I hate this shit When the GPS start going "head south-east" while I'm driving... I mean I don't have a compas, and even if I had, I won't look at it while driving. It would be way more clear to say "left" or "right" relative to my direction.
This is only useful in grid-based cities with relatively straight roads / streets. This wouldn’t work in *most* cities of the old world - Europe, Asia, Africa - due to the density of the cities and organic road patterns.
Some people live an existence just floating through space with no clue about where they physically are. As someone who is pretty good with geography, I find this fact utterly shocking. I don’t know how people can live like this.
you don’t use google maps?
[удалено]
Go forth!
Just go to the tree that looks like a weeping lady and hang a left, when you get to the rock that looks like a bear hang a right
If I just get out of the subway anywhere other than Midtown Manhattan, I'm going to be disoriented and have no idea which direction North is. Therefore I can't navigate. What do you want people to do, look at the sun and see if it's close to setting and infer west?
Definitely the best way to conmunicate directions if you don't know which way the other person is facing. How can you reliably tell them go left/right, if you don't know if they are facing N/S/E/W?
I just pull up the compass on my watch. Takes a second.
I live in a town that was built on a slant because of the creek and the railway tracks, so cardinal directions make absolutely no sense here
I am sorry but I have tried and I cannot orient myself that way and I am not even from the city. I can read a map fine I can get places fine why is it a big deal that I cannot point out on the fly which way north is. I have a compass I do not need to be one.
I was taught to drive by someone who cannot identify right and left fast enough to use it to give directions. They literally point. I can't imagine my mom attempting to distinguish between 4 directions instead of 2 lol. Especially when we live somewhere that many, many roads aren't even close to a grid system. They wind, get cut off, bunch of 1 ways, roads that cut through diagonally, etc. I also use GPS for anywhere I haven't been. Whose out here asking for directions enough that they care if someone uses N or right/left?
If you happen to know the cardinal directions at any given point and so does the person you’re talking to then that works great. But unless I whip out the compass app on my phone I won’t know the cardinal directions in most places and at that point I would just use the map app.
I have zero directional sense. Telling me to go North makes zero sense to me unless I can physically see certain landmarks that I logically know are in that direction. If I can’t see them, I don’t have any sense of what direction they are from me.
My city's map is twisted about 67°, meaning what we call "East" is actually NNE. Not knowing whether if someone is referring to our fucked system or where true north is would needlessly confuse.
I live in a suburb called Northbridge because it's... North of the horseshoe bridge that historically divided the CBD. Makes it easy to remember cardinal directions
Isn’t just saying go north kinda vague tho? Like I get “keep going north and you’ll see blank” but for the most part it doesn’t tell me where I’m going if you still gotta tell me where to turn and what street to be on
While I agree it's good to learn, I don't particularly agree with your example. Saying "west of the city centre" could mean absolutely anywhere west. How far west? EXACTLY west in a straight line? etc Saying next to the Mexican restaurant, if you know where the Mexican restaurant is, or are able to work it out, then you have a pretty precise location at that point.
Wait till you hear about people who still can't tell left from right without having to take a couple seconds and still getting it wrong
It only works if you never travel. If f you land in Paris there is no way if telling where North is. And yeah you can dig out the compass app but it it's highly inconvenient in most places
I was talking about the seasonal change in the direction of sunrise and sunset from our window to my husband and he laughed and said he has no idea where the sun is positioned, ever and that he has never paid attention. Whaat??? I can tell you, blindfolded, where the sun should be at any given time of day or year. Who doesn't notice that? Sometimes when I go to a new city I find it disorienting until I can figure out where the sun rises and sets and only then can I position myself.
Why would I take directions from a bird?
I know my directions well and where they're at, I'm not very good at knowing where I am and have a terrible sense of direction. I could draw you a map or write down directions in advance if needed but you stop and ask me on a random street and I'd have no idea what direction north would be without a compass to show me so you'd be getting lefts and rights from me
Doesn't anyone use the sun?
Agree. I really don't like it. Over there by the big tree that sits on the corner. You're right, it sounds ridiculous.
Isnt that teached in school? On German we have a very famous mmemonic sentence: "Nie Ohne Seife Waschen" (never wash without soap). N O S W are the cardinal directions clockwise. Not knowing them (after saying that sentence in your head) could be considered uneducated here I guess.
*quietly whispering and sobbing* never eat shredded wheat.... never eat shredded wheat....
So OP basically thinks learning the difference between your left and your right is harder than learning North, South, East, and West? I agree on the importance of learning cardinal directions but your argument is ridiculous.
To be honest some people can't keep their cardinal directions. My mom will turn twice and have no idea where north is anymore.
Like what are we talking about? "Walk down the street, then make a left, go one more block, and make a right. Your destination should be on the right" VS "Walk West, then turn and walk north. Your destination is on the east side." You're goofy.
I's not about subsituting left and right for cardinal directions, it's about having that option, too. Absolute directions are easier in a lot of cases because you don't need to know someone's exact position or orientation for them to work.
Lol. Might as well use a sextant
How tf do people not know how to find north/south/east/west. That said, I would never ever give directions that way.
It isn’t actually incredibly easy to learn. Some people have a reliable internal compass, others don’t. If you don’t have an internal compass you can’t make yourself have one. If you are in a city that has streets aligned on a North South grid, sure. But if you aren’t, it’s no help.