🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <338@lloyd.camex.uucp>, kent@lloyd.camex.uucp (Kent Borg) writes:
>                                  Go back a few years (to
> when language was just becoming the biggest rage): did humans have any
> need for the abstract concepts of left and right?  Up and down, yes;
> near and far, yes; bigger and smaller, yes; harder and softer, yes;
> but left and right, I don't think so.

A recent Usenet discussion (in some of the soc.culture.* groups, I think)
bought to light an interesting correlation between left/right and points
of the compass, which crops up in many languages. As I recall, the usual
relationship is that the word for Left is the same or similar to the word
for North, and/or Right corresponding to South (which is the case if one
faces the rising sun). There are also some instances of Left/Right and
West/East correspondence, I think, but none of East/West.

This might seem to endorse the idea that abstract Left/Right concepts
were not as necessary as indications of direction. However, there is
also a traditional association of Left with evil or badness of some
kind, which occurs in many cultures. I would think that abstract Good
and Bad concepts are necessary everywhere. (The other association of
Left with awkwardness or clumsiness may derive from left-handedness
iteslf, rather than vice versa.)

- John Murray, Amdahl Corp. (My own opinions, etc.)