TIL that adjustable wrenches (or crescent spanners as they are known here) are directional, so that the load is handled by the fixed jaw.
I presume you're a Kiwi?
Over in Australia they call them shifters. One of the many tiny culture shocks I had when I moved across the ditch was when I asked someone to hand my crescent and they passed my Crescent brand pliers instead.
So much so that, while typing this, iOS autocorrect tried to change “spanner” into “scanner” for me.
Today is a good day then!
There is, for lack of a better term, "folk knowledge" and technique even for simple tools that someone has to explain or demonstrate. I've been lucky and had people in my family pass their experience on to me but I've also made a lot (a lot a lot) of mistakes ruining things and breaking tools.