The world has a lot of different standards for a lot of things, but I have never heard of a place with the default screw thread direction being opposite.
So does each language have a fun mnemonic?
Photo credit: https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Giy8OrYJTjw/Tfm9Ne5o5hI/AAAAAAAAAB4/c7uBLwjkl9c/s1600/scan0002.jpg
I like this one more.
A nice thought until you run into a left handed thread…
It’s works most of them time unless you’re in a specialty trade making spindle, gears, and such that must be threaded backwards to avoid the wheel undoing itself.
Or you work with gas cylinders.
I don’t understand this one, please Airgas
I’m Norwegian. I never learned a rule in my language and always just went by instinct. Until ~3rd year of university in physics where someone told me tha the right-hand-rule applies to screws. Now I use that everywhere for screws in strange positions.
Well, this was a life-changing comment.
“La derecha oprime y la izquierda libera”
The right oppresses, the left liberates
La derecha oprime y la izquierda libera
I just knew that would be Spanish, without being able to speak more than a few words. It works far better than our effort and is both a sardonic and satirical political comment.
Well played Spanish if that really is the equivalent in common usage. Our effort sounds like it was invented by a young child whilst responding to a BBC quiz.
You know this has always confused the fuck out of me. You are going around a circle, how is there left and right? There is up-and-left, down-and-left, either way is left. If I am starting on the right of the circle (assuming I’m looking at it) which way is right? Up or down?
Imagine it like a car steering wheel.
You’d say turning the wheel to the right turns the car right.
Think of it like this. Like your hand is holding on the top of the steering wheel.
If it was a wheel, which way would it roll if you turned it like that?
It’s the top part. So if you imagine a little dot at the top (12h) position it would move to the right/clockwise or left/anti-clockwise
I always think about the direction that the top of the circle turns to apply left or right rotation, though I usually use muscle memory.
Clockwise = Righty
Or imagine a bottle cap instead of a screw… Muscle memory kicks in.
Thank you! Clockwise looking down at a bottlecap makes sense!
Finnish doesn’t have one. We just learn it by instinct and use the time saved to warm up the sauna.
“warm up the sauna”
I get slapped when I try that sort of thing on with Sauna.
Or we pretend to be opening a Koskenkorva bottle in whatever orientation the bolt is in.
with proper application of sisu, it will open in both directions
Same for Denmark. Except instead of warming up the sauna, it creates time for another Tuborg.
Gas pipes. All gas fittings are reversed threaded. So it is virtually impossible to connect one to the other.
I’m from back in the generation when we had volume knobs.
My dad told me turn the volume up to tighten it, turn it down to loosen it.
I’ve never had a problem.
This phrase has never made any sense to me. It’s a circle. If one side is moving right, then the opposite side is moving left. So the phrase only makes sense if you specify which side we are talking about, which nobody ever does. Therefore it’s completely illogical to me while everyone else just gets it. Side note: Autism can be a real bitch sometimes.
If it were a wheel which way would it roll?
They are not a circle unless you have some really odd bolts or screws! I suppose a bolt looks like a circle in “Flatland” but we live in 3D space with time as a fourth dimension that we can directly perceive.
A screw or bolt and the rest are, roughly speaking, a cylinder with a helical thread on it. They also have a “head” or similar which acts a stopper. You can model all of them as a bolt. We use a spanner, wrench, fingers, screw drivers, drill drivers, scissors, whatever to do the tightening or loosening. You can model all those tools as a spanner (wrench). We need some final mental contortions to make this slightly rigorous: The spanner (wrench) is always considered as being at 12:00 on an imaginary clock and we have to assume that our bolt moves away from us for “tighten” and towards us for “loosen” and I suppose we should also require that we are looking at the “face” of the notional clock and not its obverse!
Now it should be obvious how the rule works. Turn the spanner to the right and you tighten the bolt, turn it to the left and you loosen it.
OK that lot is not very helpful when you are under a sink or in a roofing void performing strange contortions. Try holding up one of your hands and pretend you are holding a bolt or the head of a screw. Clockwise turns will tighten and anti clockwise will loosen. You might use “leftie loosey …” to bootstrap: “clockwise tighten”. It becomes even more interesting when you are trying to work out which way to turn a bolt or whatever when you can only feel it and when tightening actually moves it towards you.
Think about a bolt running through a wheel with the head towards us, say on a very simplified bicycle. Move the bike to the right, and hence the wheels turn clockwise. Friction should cause the bolt to tighten. If you change the design and put the bolt in on the other side and now forwards for the bike is to the left then you will loosen the bolt and that will be dangerous. Now change the design to a bolt with a nut and washers etc and it rapidly gets complicated!
Also, please note that some bolts have reverse threads to the norm. On a garden strimmer the tightening knob that holds the spool on is often a reverse threaded bolt. That’s for similar reasons to the bicycle wheel thing I mentioned earlier.
I’ve just spent ages and a lot of words to try and persuade you that this has bugger all to do with autism. I think that your error was really to do with not thinking too deeply about the real issue and focusing on the wrong thing. We all do that, extremely often, regardless of where we are on the spectrum.
I hope that you see that considerations with regarding helical threads on a cylinder or a tapering cone (but not circles) can be quite complicated and that’s why sometimes we all need some silly rules to get us through the every day ordeal of dealing with them.
Now, would you like a chat about circles … 8)
Clockwise and counterclockwise may be more intuitive for some people. Is the clock-hand (wrench) going forward in time, or backwards. But I don’t know of any quick rhyme for that
Yes, that verbiage makes way more sense.
Don’t think about it in 3d space.
So where do you put the rest of your helices on a cylinder or cone, in 2D? In Flatland a screw or bolt becomes a circle with a short hair. The whole point of “leftie loosy” is to try to help with reality as we perceive it.
Try it the next time you are underneath a car wielding a socket spanner with a taped on extension thingie that you jury rigged whilst trying to shift a hex nut at 45 degrees to reality that you cannot see, with oil dripping in your eye. Obviously the oil is a mix of the 30 year old native stuff loosened up with the WD40 that might break the rust lock.
I suggest you do think abut things in 3D and don’t forget the other dimension (time). That WD40 needs time to break the rust lock.
“Leftie loosy” isn’t for keyboard worriers - its for engineers and technicians, plumbers, and the rest and obviously for DiYers.
When you are knackered and pissed off and you need to shift a fucking nut or bolt or whatever, you need incantations to get you back on track.
They mean is the wrench handle moving left from the 12 o’clock position or left from the 6 o’clock position. You would not believe how many people struggle with lefty righty because of start location.
I defer to clockwise and counter-clockwise (anti-clockwise in UK). Except for new gen that never learned analog clock stuggles with this concept also.
Then they encounter a Left Hand thread and the universe implodes
Shit, a standard thread feels natural to me, but a left hand thread still fucks my life up sometimes — trying to notice what’s going on before I strip it.
My grill can connect to those camping propane tanks, but it’s threaded opposite… gets me every time
I have left-hand threaded fittings on a few things and always say to myself aloud “This is reverse-threaded” before I attempt to turn them then still fuck up first turn. It doesn’t stop me from fucking it up the first time - it just helps me remember why.
When I train new people on this equipment I tell them to say it aloud, show them, still fuck up the first turn, then they laugh.
Then I have them do it in front of me including saying it aloud - and they fuck up the first turn…
When you’ve been doing something unconsciously for decades it’s really hard to break.
I think it was old Chryslers had opposite lugnuts, I can only imagine how many stripped threads happened
I love how half the people in this thread are under-thinking it and don’t seem to understand they’re doing so. I wonder whether it’s a bit.
But the entire rotation is either clockwise (right) or counterclockwise (left). Ultimately, its just a helpful reminder which way to turn lol
Clockwise and counter-clockwise makes sense.
But when you say “right” it’s not clear which side of the circle is being referenced. If the top of the circle is moving to the right, the bottom is moving left at the same time. So the saying only makes sense when you specify that you’re talking about the top of the circle.
you have to have never seen a steering wheel to not understand which side of the circle is being referenced. it’s always the top. who would even reference anything else and why.
“turn it right”
“which part???”
“the middle of course, you absolute alien”
Because people get confused when there is no space for the wrench at the top, and they put the handle at the bottom and try to move the wrench left or right, not referencing the top of bolt.
Because they aren’t using the saying as a clokwise/counter clockwise reminder but as a flat out instruction.
Imagine it as if it were a track you were driving around, which way would you turn the wheel?
It’s getting so convoluted at this point just knowing clockwise/anticlockwise is infinitely easier.
Yes! That concept makes way more sense.
If a steering wheel has you this perplexed then I beg you to never ever drive a vehicle.
If you’re gripping the bottom of the wheel you move your hands left to make the car turn right. Which is kind of the whole problem here. Rotation around a centre doesn’t happen right or left. That’s the whole reason why the words “clockwise” and “anticlockwise” exist. Translation = right, left, up, down, forward, back. Rotation = clockwise, anticlockwise.
Yes, it’s always the top side of the circle in this context, or you can think about how clock hands do go in a specific direction, because they’re a radius, not a circumference. There, now it’s cleared up for you.
The clock hands move right when at the top but left when at the bottom.
In Australia, it’s the other way around and the clock will try to eat you or at least sting you to death.
What the fuck are you talking about.
You’re either rotating the fastener to the right or the left.
It doesn’t matter what side you’re talking about, because you’re not moving one side of the fastener, you’re rotating the whole thing one direction or the other.
Clockwise just means something is rotating to the right.
If I ask you to turn around to the right, are you going to ask me what side of you I’m referencing?
Here is clockwise. One arrow is going to the right and one to the left.
What happens if you look at it from the other side?
I tend to agree but you could argue that from a perspective in the center of the rotation you’re turning to the right. Imagine standing in the center of those arrows.
The whole thing is rotating to the right, that’s what clockwise means. Clocks rotate to the right. One arrow is not pointing left, it’s pointing in the direction of rotation, which is to the right.
Is the direction of rotation in the room with us right now?
You think this arrow is pointing to the right, when it is clearly pointing up and to the left? Fascinating.
If you follow that arrow around to the next with your hand, which direction is your hand moving?
That is indicating clockwise rotation, or a rotation to the right. We’re talking about circles here
The bottom arrow is, definitionally, pointing left.
If I ask you to turn around to the right, are you going to ask me what side of you I’m referencing?
No, because humans have a pretty clear forward direction. Screws don’t. You say turn a screw to the right, do you mean make the top of the screw move right or the bottom move right?
Most people assume the top, but not all, and the language is ambiguous.
The “front” or “forward” direction of a screw is clearly the face of the fastener itself, be it a hex head, Phillips, or Slotted screw. Picking a side of a face as the front doesn’t make any sense. The whole thing needs to rotate one direction or another, and it will either rotate to the right to tighten, or the left to loosen.
If I ask you what the front of a clock is, are you going to tell me it’s the top curve near the ceiling? No it’s the face of the clock, and the hands rotate around it to the right.
You aee assuming a top orientation moving to the right. Give somebody a wrench handle at the bottom of nut and tell them left to loosen, you will see how most take it literally and move handle to the left side of their body. they think in terms of their left and their right, not the screws right left from a starting location at top, or if from 4 oclock position to the “left of” 4 oclock as if you were facing the 4.
If you’re looking head on to the screw/nut/whatever then we’re talking about the top of the screw/but/whatever.
You can also imagine if the nut was actually a wheel. Which way would you spin it to make it roll left or right.
Confused the hell out of me at a young age. That’s how I came around to thinking of it
I agree but there is a intuitive way once you are holding it. I remember looking at a car wheel and the signal lever not understanding how do people decided that up on the lever means right. Yeah it’s connected to the wheel rotation but why turning the wheel clockwise means turning right? When I actually sat on the driver seat there was an instinct.For most people It’s more logical to look at the “top” of the circle and corelate it’s movement with turning left/right.
A thing that annoyed me is when table top games use a non determinist way to define player order. It always depends on the observer.alIf you just say “then the you pass your turn to the left”, what left? From my perspective; from the top down perspective translating it to counterclockwise? From the tables perspective which is the opposite?
I used to feel the same way. If you’re talking about the direction you’re moving your hand, it assumes your hand is above, not below.
Had a similar hangup with less than/greater than symbols.
I remember when my grandpa was like why not just keep going? I was pulling the ratchet end of the wrench off the bolt at the bottom… I said but that side is left and he laughed and said its just to get you started and told me the clock thing. Dont ever ask me to put a nut on a bolt I will cross thread it every time.
I think it’s fairly parochial, and sounds quite infantile to me. Growing up (uk) we just used clockwise to tighten.
Have a chat with some plumbers, builders, chippies, sparkys or engineers - assuming you are not one already. I think “leftie loosey …” is well known in the UK.
It doesn’t even bloody work, lefty tighty righty loosy is every bit as valid if the spanner is at the bottom.
Apple: User - you are holding it wrong!
The spanner is always at 12 o’clock. Either turn yourself or the spanner or your point of view to make it so and then the rule holds. The last option require imagination.
Take the piss after you have tried to thread a nut on a bolt that you cannot see and tightening it is towards you, at an angle. The nut has to cross a hack sawed thread and will try to cross thread 75% of the time unless the moon is in Venus.
The Right Hand Rule (RHR). Point the thumb of your right hand in the direction you want something to go. Curl your fingers. That is the direction of rotation. Translate to any language which has hands.
I guess I’m an idiot because I don’t understand lmao
Your thumb is an arrow pointing at where you want the screw to go. After you curl your fingers, your fingers are arrows showing the direction to turn the screw
We were taught a similar trick in physics - point your right-hand thumb in the direction that current (or electrons, same same) is travelling and the curling of your fingers shows the direction of the resultant magnetic field that the current creates.
I teach physics. A prof of mine taught me the right hand rule applies to right handed bolts. No accident they are named that. I teach this to students now. Maybe 1 in 10 like it. The rest prefer their old rhyme. Oh well. Can’t say I didn’t try
I know how to turn a wrench. Knowing the direction is the difficult part. Especially on toilets.
The right oppresses, the left liberates
Lmao
Ah yes the famed spaniard mao
You can cover right/left with “right is the hand you write with, and left is the one that’s left” and be good for 80%-95% of the population.
In austrian german dialect, “Mit da Ua, draht ma zua.” which in standard german would be “Mit der Uhr, dreht man zu.” and in english “With the clock, turn it closed.” or something like that.
Da scheißt di au!
Neat. Would be engineering related lol
In English, there’s also “clockwise-lockwise”. It makes more sense than talking about left and right.
The Spanish version is my favourite: la derecha oprime y la izquierda libera (the right oppresses and the left liberates)
Holy shit, fucking hell, now this is some goddamn wordplay!
I’m stealing this like the fucking British Museum.
That’s awesome.
BASED
¡Gracias por la lección de español de hoy!
I think I saw that on reddit 2years ago, thank you for reminding me how’s the actual saying (I ~have adopted ever since I saw it, lol)
Oh wow that one is really good :D
I’m using this in every language I speak from now on!
I had never heard that before. Is that a region or country-specific thing?
Definitely not a common phrase. I’ve never heard of it (from Spain) and I just asked about 10 others from other countries and only one has. We usually would just say clockwise or counterclockwise
Isn’t everything in Spanish?
