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Comment by serial_dev | Hacker News Reader

I wish they gave or examples as to why simple left and right would be confusing, and how port and starboard are different and better.

Maybe because I'm from a landlocked country, but this article didn't help me understand the why.

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A sailor, looking towards the back of the boat:

- There's an incoming boat !

- From where ?

- From the left !

Is it the left of the sailor, or is it the left of the vessel ?

You only know which side is port or starboard by figuring out your orientation compared to the ship and picking the left side of the ship.

So it’s not actually achieving anything. You could just say left always refers to the ship’s left.

You still use left and right on board, but referring to other things. E.g. you sit on the left side of the table, and by using "left" it's clear that your reference is the table itself and not the ship.

What you achieve is a new set of coordinates relative to the vessel. You are going north, sitting on the port, with a glass of wine in your right hand, instead of going up and sitting on the left.

This all feels a bit like arguing against the use of cardinal directions because they don't make sense unless you learn them first.

If you use left and right for the ship, you wouldn't be able to use personal left and right without risking ambiguity. You'd just be trading one convenience for the other.

Port and starboard become instinctive very quickly, with no mental gymnastics needed. Left and right are confusing, there must be a reason all sailors are using those terms..

That reason is called tradition

Tradition is a form of collective intelligence. Tradition is the ritual the Yandruwandha carry out to cook nardoo. Without that ritual it is poisonous.

No, it's just a form of long-term repetition, intelligence is not required, just don't limit your example set to those that save you from poison, but also include those that poison

They say that it's because "left" and "right" depend on your orientation (it would perhaps be confusing to talk about "the left side of the boat" if you're facing the stern (rear) and the side in question is on your right).

It's probably a similar reason people talk about the "driver's side" and "passenger's side" of a car instead of the left and right sides.

OK but what if you don't know their car is starboard-side drive?

Nearside (near the kerb) and offside (the other side).

Left and Right didn't have their modern meaning back then. In Old English riht meant straight, as in direct or not bent. It later assumed the meaning of correct as in right and wrong. Lyft meant weak. Their reference to handedness seems to have been incidental. It seems odd to us to talk about the 'straight' and 'weak' hand, but to them it made sense, but maybe not to talk about the 'straight' or 'weak' sides of a boat.

The concept of left and right hands was not commonly used historically. During the English Civil War many recruits didn't know which hand or foot was left or right. During marching training instructors used to stick some hay in one boot and straw in the other for each recruit and call out "Hay, Straw, Hay, Straw".

Imagine ten sailors on a ship, each facing a different direction and trying to coordinate their actions by shouting ‘left’ and ‘right’ to each other.

- Turn it left, no, I mean the ship’s left, not my left!

You could just shout ship's left or boat's left or shorten those to shleft or something, more intuitive than all those old terms

It's a bit like theater - left and right are different depending on whether you're looking at the stage (such as from the audience) or looking out from the stage. So you have to have "stage left" and "house left" (and the same for right) to distinguish them. But it's still confusing if somebody just says left. Which left?

So they could just say something like "ship left" and "ship right" that are always referenced to the bow of the ship, and that would work almost as well, but having special terms just removes any possibility for confusion.

No different than a house - you don't refer to the Left Wing, but the West Wing.

Where is West?

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