Subj : word
To   : Alexander Koryagin
From : Ardith Hinton
Date : Tue Nov 17 2020 16:12:44

Hi, Alexander!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

 AH>  Various examples & historical anecdotes available
 AH>  on request. :-))

 AK>  Oh, you are very welcome! ;-)


            Okay... here's one.  As you probably know, Americans drive on the right side of the road & people in a majority of other countries do too.  But things haven't always been that way.  When it really mattered which side of a horse a knight mounted on & what the chances were of meeting up with an enemy who was approaching from the opposite direction, it made sense to keep to the left.  The situation changed in the 18th century when teamsters began hauling farm produce from one place to another.  Most preferred to drive on the right because, with a team of horses working in pairs, they'd sit on the left where they could simultaneously use their dominant hand to control the horses & see that their wheels didn't get tangled up with other people's wheels.

            The aristocracy still wanted do things the way they were used to, and others sometimes resented being forced to the right when horsemen passed. But over time continental Europe, Russia, and the US all accepted the idea of driving on the right.  From my POV as a student of language this is where the story gets a lot more interesting.  I understand that when stage coaches were used in the US somebody would probably be "riding shotgun", and that in those days people were routinely told "don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes" because the firearms which were available at the time couldn't be aimed with the same degree of precision as modern weaponry.  There had been highway robbers in England since medieval times at least... e.g. Robin Hood.  I think they'd have found it advantageous to conceal themselves on a horseman's left. Later on, in SomePlace Else, it made sense to position whoever was guarding a coach on the driver's right... where assailants would be more likely to hide.

            AFAIC it doesn't matter which side of the road other folks prefer driving on as long as there is general agreement WRT how things are done.  In Montreal there are two types of pedestrians... i.e. the quick & the dead.  In LOndon the same applies, but you must look "right-left-right" before crossing the street despite what's been drilled into you since you were knee-high to a grasshopper.  I survived both.  Meanwhile, folks here in BC drove on the left until it became problematic that our neighbours to the south didn't.  Not all provinces changed at the same time... but BC did it about a century ago.  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)

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