North/South/East/West – Left/Right .. How do Men and women ask directions?

[Booberdawg]

This just drives me fricken nuts! I will bump this poll in the morning because it is late on the west coast and I must share this PC with my parents as I am out of town visiting them.

My observation is based on familiar areas but my frustration comes from unfamiliar territory. I am a female and when I get directions to go here and turn south and go there and turn east it doesn’t mean shit to me. I want to hear – turn left or right, or go straight at this or that intersection. When someone starts chanting go north/south/east/west, my eyes glaze over and you might as well be speaking gibberish to me. I don’t know what fucking direction I’m facing!

I actually found this to be a good talking point when I was on the road selling insurance in bumfuck farm town for a couple months. I got lost so many times with my MapQuest directions and actually stopped in farm fields and asked farmers for directions. They know everyone within a 50-mile radius. When they gave me the north/south/east/west routine I’d tell them that women do left right or straight and men do north/south/east/west and then they would give me directions I could understand. Half the time I’d end up selling them a policy! Albeit a small one, but nevertheless! If it were not 14 hours a day at my own expense I’d still be doing it … that’s another thread ….

So tell me, men and women, how do you get around? Is it left, right, or straight ahead; or north/south/east/west?

[Kenneth ken]

1. front range CO

is pretty easy - the mountains are both very prominent and in the west.

Most days they can be seen from anywhere, so it's easy to get oriented.

If I'm taking the time to give someone directions, I usually use left/right, but also add NSEW.

...turn left, that will put you going east. go to <wherever> turn, right, and go south for ...

[Snow]

23. Heheh...a friend who grew up in Denver told me his mom

always used the mountains to navigate. One day she had to go to the dentist's office, where she'd been going for 20 years, and it was foggy. She got hopelessly lost....still would be if it hadn't cleared.

[SOteric]

2. Honestly...?

I could get lost in a phone booth, - even with a road map and a compass. It doesn't much matter whether I hear North/South or left/right. I'll be lost.

[Booberdawg]

6. LOL!

Well thank you, but I would be soooo appreciative of left/right or straight!

I'm betting without the ti martwonis you could find your way out of a phone booth too. :D

[SOteric]

13. Sadly, no.

Whatever my gifts in life, and I know there are a few, a sense of direction is not one of them.

I am an ambidexter and was never thoroughly and comfortably grounded in left and right as a child. It takes me a few minutes to work out which is which.

On the other hand, I can write upside down and backward, with either hand, as quickly and neatly as I do in a forward direction. So if all else fails, I've got a career as an Air Force weather statistician to fall back on.

While left/right and North/South still confuse me in a sober state, it will be noted that I utterly kick ass at spatial thinking. So, challenge me to a 3-dimensional chess game, or a deep-field Tetris match and you're dust.

[politicat]

3. Have to admit, though, I've got an advantage to using NEWS....

Here, the mountains are always WEST. People can get fubarred up on Right, left and straight, but West is a constant.

But not everyone has that kind of obvious landmark. The Rockies are hard to miss....

ON THE OTHER HAND, Mr. Politicat likes right and left. I think it's cultural and depends on where you grew up and how many people in the area are long term residents and how big the distances are and how straight and flat the roads are. (RL seems to be less common with long, flat, straight roads, AFAIK)

In Indiana, where my family is from and where parts of it have lived in the same 40 mile radius since statehood (1816), they do right-left and landmark.... and sometimes refer to landmarks that are GONE!!!!! (This confuses the hell out of me.... I left the state when I was six!)

But in AZ and CA where everyone but me relocated, NEWS is the standard. It may be because of a lack of familiarity with the area, the number of newcomers and relative nrewcomers, or the rate of new construction.

Drat. My anthropologist genes are calling out for a study now. Dang you! *Grin*

Politicat (Who has not checked her chromosomes, but is physically and culturally female and has been since birth.)

[rucky]

4. Only exception to left/right:

Freeway on-ramps - always marked by NSEW, and one clover-leaf would throw off a left/right direction

[Tinoire]

5. Left. 2 blocks. then right

I can not stand that East West crap! Anytime a man starts rattling about that, I open my big eyes and ask, is that Left or right? Memorize the first two-three lines of the directions and promptly stop to ask someone else...

It may take me a little longer to find my way but hell, better than ending up in Texas or something.

I mean honestly... Do men think there's room for a compass in my purse?

[Booberdawg]

7. Oh look at this!!!!

So far out of 9 votes and 4 of them men, NO VOTES FOR north/south/east/west for men!!!

Must be my fricken luck or the region I come from .....

[kskold]

8. NEWS for this woman

I can manage directions in both l/r and NEWS - but l/r is relative and NEWS is absolute. So if my directions say "East on 6th, North on B, West on 4th St" I know exactly which way I should be headed.

If my direction-giver accidently leaves out a step (my Mom's good at this) I have a better chance of following the instructions if they're in NEWS.

My sisters and I use NEWS a lot - "it's in the NW corner of the garage" is clearer to us than "front left." I mean - left facing out from inside or left facing in from outside?

But I admit that you need a sense of direction for NEWS to work. If someone said "drive 5 minutes, then turn at the next driveway" I'd be lost without a clock in the car. I have absolutely no time sense. (For instance, I had no idea it was after 3am until I just looked. It was 1:45 last time I checked.) I can't tell you how long something will take, no matter how many times I might have done it. And I'm always running late.

But North/South/East/West - that I just know. I have a friend (also female) with no idea about directions, but she always knows the time within about 2 minutes. Minds work in such fascinatingly different ways!

Kristen

[Booberdawg]

9. I'm so dense it took me a while to figure out what NEWS meant!

Hey, Welcome to DU kskold! :toast:

Thanks for your comments. Sense of time is another thread and that might be interesting as well. I can't help but see that so far this thread is going in favor of my disability on this subject. Only 1 male and 3 females out of 16 votes have gone for the gawd forsaken NSEW crap that drives me bug shit. As a matter of fact, that is backwards, 3 females and 1 male, from my theory that males had this anomoly about this NSEW shit that drives me nuts.

I am beginning to think this might be a regional thing. Hmmmm .... I may do this poll over again and designate certain regions of the country.

Heres's the deal - I think the directions I usually get that drive me nuts are from Midwest people. My dad and wife in San Diego gave me directions tonight but they are Midwest or east coast people, so I got the NSEW crap. My experience in Iowa (from men) is the NSEW crap. I gotta do a more refined poll tomorrow!!!

[newyawker99]

10. Hi kskold!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[supernova]

11. Can do either

depending on the terrain.

L/R works well in a city with a planned grid.

NWES works better in rural areas where there aren't many roads and it may be miles before you have to turn. But to know I am headed in the right direction is a start. I basically imagine my car driving down a map. That's how I get direction oriented.

I do however, demand landmarks in both places. And I'm a great backtracker.

[VelmaD]

12. I can do both

I have a really good sense of direction and it doesn't bother me if people give me directions using north/south/east/west or left/right/straight.

[CO Liberal]

14. My Second Wife Worked On Landmarks

And since she was a large woman who loved food, most of her landmarks were food-related. "Turn right at the Burger King, left at the Dairy Queen....."

:-)

[wysimdnwyg]

15. NEWS sucks around here

We've got so many streets that circle the whole damn city, NEWS directions will mess you up big time.

Let's see just how screwed up Nashville roads are:
Broadway runs E/W. But not really. It's more NE/SW. At one point, going straight puts you onto another road. Broadway veers left. A bit later, Broadway becomes 21st Ave. But if you're going the other way, you can stay on 21st by making a left turn. If you continue to follow 21st S/W/away from town, it becomes Hillsboro Rd. By this time, it's heading pretty much due south.

Want more?

Briley Pkwy becomes White Bridge Rd, becomes Woodmont Blvd, becomes Thompson Ln, which runs into Briley Pkwy, but really makes a big left turn.

Confused yet?

Old Hickory Blvd circles the entire city. But it turns in some places, while going straight puts you on another road. It also shifts sometimes. By this, I mean you have to turn onto another road for a bit, then turn again onto OHB.

[Booberdawg]

19. yegads - in that case

nothing less than a picture would do!

[wysimdnwyg]

20. I've lived here my whole life

and that's why I STILL carry a map. (For those curious, I'm over 30, so that's quite a few years of driving.)

[ironflange]

16. I never ask for directions

I just make sure I always have a reasonably up-to-date map with me. My mom, OTOH, will stop and ask directions from from the first person she sees, even if it's a wino. I know, I was there.

[cally]

17. Depends on where I am

I live in California and I always know where the ocean is so NSEW works well for me when I am here. When I lived on the East Coast or when I travel, I prefer both. I couldn't figure out which direction the ocean was half the time without consulting a map. I'm another one who is constantly loss. I can't tell you how many times someone says you have been there 10 times before, can't you find it. Well no I can't without directions. :shrug:

My husband, who never gets lost, has no idea which direction is West or North. He'll tell me to turn South when he means North. He now tells me right or left.

[Booberdawg]

18. kick

[geniph]

21. I can't stand directions that use visual cues

I'm not a visual person, I'm a verbal person. I want directions that say, go 1/3 of a mile north, then turn east onto 257th NE. And yes, I'm a female. Women's directions make me CRAZY.

I mostly only get lost indoors - in malls especially. I never lose North when I'm outside, but I lose it inside all the time. I can never find my way around in malls, even ones I've been in dozens of times. The one good thing when I was working at Boeing is that the buildings were all numbered logically indoors (because they were so large) - they'd start with 1A in the northwest corner, then go 2A, 3A, etc., across the north side of the building, and count down 1B, 1C, etc., down the west side of the building. Made finding someone's office or cubicle much easier (possible) if you knew it was J15.

[July]

44. I think we're twins

I get lost in hospitals, too.

[TrogL]

22. "Turn left right here"

from a known dyslexic.

AAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!

[Booberdawg]

24. turn left straight right over there!

:D

[pmbryant]

25. Poll reveals no distinction between men and women on this subject! ;-)

Wow! Completely identical results for men and women at the time I write this: 5 for NSEW and 12 for Left/Right/Straight.

Amazing. :crazy:

I voted for Men-L/R/S. Despite being very good with maps, I very frequently get east and west mixed up in my head. So I stick with left-right to be safe.

(EDIT: Darn! The beautiful symmetry has been destroyed. ;-) )

--Peter

[grannylib]

26. I don't do right OR straight...

but left is just fine! I have a good sense of direction so NSEW OK too...

[Richardo]

27. "Turn left where the big oak tree used to be": directions in Pittsburgh

I have had this done to me!

[Kathy in Cambridge]

28. Nothing is Grid in Boston-No such things as N/S/E/W

so Left, Right, Straight, and the use of landmarks are the way everyones asks and learns directions here.

[Booberdawg]

29. Pretty evenly split between men and women

and the N/E/W/S is losing out I'm happy to see.

[Snow]

32. Bet you can guess which I was, Booberdawg...

by the way, how come there's no Seattle-ites telling us how they navigate by The Mountain?

[Booberdawg]

33. LOL! I'll bet you are a N/E/W/S

:D

[Snow]

43. *chuckle* Spot on!

~however did she guess that?~

[geniph]

45. Because the Mountain usually isn't out!

Every time I want to show it off to out-of-towners, it's too cloudy to see it!

(and it's nearly always SE of me)

I did get confused when I was back on the east coast - I wanted to go see the ocean, and it seemed very weird to this Seattle native to drive EAST to see the ocean! Ocean is west!

[Snow]

47. *snicker* You know how to predict the weather in Seattle?

If you can see The Mountain, it's going to rain.
If you can't see The Mountain, it's raining.

[Exultant Democracy]

30. The art of holistic driving

You find a car that looks where it is going and you follow it.

[JVS]

31. It depends on the scope of directions.

If you are telling me how to get somewhere that is miles away I prefer directional instructions. For instance: Take the Turnpike to the Harrisburg exit and turn right doesn't tell me much. If you tell me to turn off and head north then i can use that. On the other hand, if you tell me to turn NE off of Baum Boulevard onto Bigelow, You are making it needlessly confusing, especially because the streets to which you refer are not built in a strictly E-W or N-S orientation. In fact we could argue for some time as to what direction they actually head.

[amazona]

34. ha...can't tell left from right...and FEMALE!

You won't like this answer.

I can't tell left from right...high-functioning autistic and not the only one with this syndrome who can't read maps or distinguish left/right.

I can tell the cardinal directions by the sun or the north star. Now get me on a cloudy day in an unfamiliar area and I guess I will just have to sit in the bar and swill a few beers while waiting for the taxi.

About a year ago I learned that "most" people with my syndrome were men and that people with autism somehow had "male" brains...which brought me back a couple of decades, when people were always saying, "You think like a man." Sigh. I can assure you that I am a woman.

Mostly, how I ask directions is influenced not by gender but by being from the South (being extra polite). If someone gives me directions too fast or I don't understand, I smile and say thank you and then, when they are out of sight to not get their feelings hurt, I ask someone else. Eventually, I will find someone who will show me the way.

[Sting]

35. i can get around both ways...

but I do prefer left, right, or straight. :shrug:
Sting

[Feanorcurufinwe]

36. My pet peeve on directions

Here are directions I can follow:

Take the first right, the third left, bear left at the 'Y' and look for number 420 on the left side of the street.


Directions that drive me crazy:

Follow this road for 2 miles, you'll pass a high school on your left, and a KwikStop just after that, make a right just after the big blue house with the lawn jockey, then you'll go past a Stop'n'Go, a Kfc, and a mortuary. Keep going. Look for the Ace hardware store. Once you see it, you've got a mile before you turn left. If you see the Baptist church you've gone too far. Stay left and you'll see my house it has a yellow VW bus and a brown Dodge pickup.

lol

North/south/east/west or left/right? I don't care -- just give me directions instead an inventory of every landmark in between here and there!

[Booberdawg]

37. LOL! My eyes started glazing over just reading it!

Who can remember all that crap?:shrug:

[WeirdSceneGoldmine]

38. Up the road is North

Down is south
Over that way is West if you live on the East coast
Back over there is East (living on the East coast)

[leanings]

39. Those crazy bumpkins!

"bumfuck farm town for a couple months. I got lost so many times with my MapQuest directions and actually stopped in farm fields and asked farmers for directions." Oh. My. Gawd. Actually stopped in the farm fields and talked to actual FARMERS? Whoa. :)

If I'm GIVING directions to people who look like they can find their ass with two hands and a flashlight, I'll give NSEW and prefer to think that way. If I'm in a really urban area, I'll stick with rights and lefts.

When I'm good and drunk and giving directions from the passenger seat, I'll lapse into nautical directions, which really ticks off my friends who're driving; "Arrr...at the light, bring 'er round 90 degrees to port. The bar'll be about three leagues down off our starboard bow..."

[ComerPerro]

40. I prefer NEWS, part of that is because I am from Chicagoland

And, everyone knows East, because that's where the Lake is. You can just sense where Lake Michigan is, too. Its odd.

So, NEWS is easy there, because E is towards the lake, W is away...


Anyone else experience this with a large body of water?

[NewzJunkE]

41. I use the Cheech & Chong method ....

.... "Haady, haady, friends and neighbors, Elmont T. Slim, here, of Elmont's Used Cars .... GAAD DAMM we got the best used cars. If ya don't know how ta git here, take ANY freeway, get off the Wilmington Cut-off, go NINETY-SEVEN miles 'til you see the Tase-T-Freeze, make a RIGHT at the Tase-T-Freeze, go NINETY-SEVEN miles 'til you hit a Standard Station, walk up to somebody there and ask 'Where the hell am I'? ".

I can't believe I still remember that :beer:

[trof]

42. Usually left-right, unless

I'm talking to another pilot. We generally orient north-south-east-west. I also try to give lead-in landmarks before a turn. If I just say "then turn right on Smith Street" by the time you can read the street sign you're past it.

[geniph]

46. "Five miles before the road dead-ends,

take a right where the Miller's barn used to be before it burned down, then a left onto the dirt road where the Murray kids wrecked their daddy's pickup last year..."