Interesting word Walt, never heard of it (and "widdershins" is from a
long way back in my memory!).
But "dexter" is indeed Latin for right - "dexterous" is derived from
it. Whereas "sinister" is Latin for left, and the derivation of
"sinister" in English is that left was bad, right good; for that reason
the guest of honour sat on the host's right hand.
The Latin-derived languages in South Europe still use descendants of
"dexter" and "sinister"; in Italian it's "destro" and "sinistro" I
believe; in Spanish "derecho" and "izquierdo" (had to look that one up
in the tourist dictionary); and in French "droit" and "gauche". It is
interesting (well I think so anyway ;-)) that "gauche" is a word in
English to mean awkward or even naive.
Chris
On Friday, May 2, 2003, at 16:21 Europe/London, Walt Wayman wrote:
"Deasil" just means clockwise. My dictionary indicates it comes
from the Latin "dexter," which apparently means "right hand," or
some such. I'm not a Latin scholar. The full definition is
simply, "Clockwise--compare widdershins."
<|_:-)_|>
C M I Barker
Cambridgeshire, Great Britain.
+44 (0)7092 251126
mailto:ftog@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.threeshoes.co.uk
http://homepage.mac.com/zuiko
... a nascent photo library.
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
|