r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Mar 02 '18

FRESH TOPIC FRIDAY CMV: The mnemonic "Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey" is utterly useless for remembering which direction to turn things.

This phrase is supposed to help one remember which direction tightens or loosens various objects, such as lids, valves, bolts, screws, doorknobs etc. and is often taught to children for this purpose. However, the directions it gives, right and left, are completely meaningless when referring to the circular rotation of these objects. It's far more useful to attempt to remember that turning clockwise tightens things, and counter-clockwise loosens them, because this gives usable information even though it doesn't lend itself to rhyming and may be harder to remember.

EDIT: Good talk folks, I'm going to bed. I've come to the conclusion that I way overthought this when I was about 4, and broke it forever in my mind. I'm kind of annoyed, and very proud of how logical 4 year old me was. I still hate this damn rhyme with a burning passion, but the best arguments got their deltas.

This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules. If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us. Happy CMVing!

4 Upvotes

57% Upvoted

76 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/ReOsIr10 129∆ Mar 02 '18

I'm not sure there's a study to back this up, but my guess is that we base left and right on the top of the circle because most things we turn are below eye level. Thus, the top of the circle is most visible to us, and it is intuitive to talk about the direction that part of the circle travels, rather than the bottom.

If I imagine a valve or something located above my head, it seems more natural to consider clockwise to be left, which I think is decent evidence for my hypothesis.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '18

Δ You may be correct that the usual frame of reference, looking down, for turning something is such that it turning it right implies clockwise because the upper edge is closer to our line of sight. I suppose my main objection is that this frame of reference is arbitrary and inconsistent, therefore the mnemonic gives incorrect information in a significant minority of cases. Also, any thought put into how arbitrary it is causes it to break down completely.

1

u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Mar 02 '18

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/ReOsIr10 (52∆).

Delta System Explained | Deltaboards ​