Cardinal Direction - Order of Directions

Order of Directions

This section requires expansion.

While the directions can be listed in any order, most formally in clockwise or counterclockwise order, starting from some point (such as NESW, or, following the sun from daybreak in the northern hemisphere, ESWN), different languages conventionally use different orders, often using pairs of opposite directions. In English, the conventional order of the directions is "north, south, east, and west" (NSEW = N/S + E/W). In Japanese, most common is EWSN (東西南北 = E/W + S/N), and east-west (東西) is idiomatic for “everywhere, in all parts”; Japan is located at the extreme east of Eurasia.

Read more about this topic:  Cardinal Direction

Famous quotes containing the words order of, order and/or directions:

    “Out of the slimy mud of words, out of the sleet and hail of verbal imprecisions,
    Approximate thoughts and feelings, words that have taken the place of thoughts and feelings,
    There springs the perfect order of speech, and the beauty of incantation.”
    —T.S. (Thomas Stearns)

    “An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may.”
    —William Hazlitt (1778–1830)

    “I do not like football, which I think of as a game in which two tractors approach each other from opposite directions and collide. Besides, I have contempt for a game in which players have to wear so much equipment. Men play basketball in their underwear, which seems just right to me.”
    —Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)