Saturday, June 18, 2005
(10:14 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Mnemonic Devices
The German word for "Western" is "abendlandisch" (evening-land-ish).I knew that "east" and "west" are based on "morning" and "night" in German, because that was one of the examples that the author of my grammar book used to illustrate how graphic the compound German words can be. So I then thought, "Oh, evening is west."
The reason I was able to deduce this is because in Calvin and Hobbes, during one of his scientific explanations that are made up on the spot, Calvin's dad claims that when the sun sets at night, it lands in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Ever since I read that comic, that has been how I remembered that the sun sets in the west, and I then derive the probable direction from which it rises (...um...east!) as necessary.
