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
DROL: Dicht Rechts, Open Links.
I think I just prefer Links Los, which implies that the other way tightens.
Dutch, BTW.
The German version as actually survived its original time frame: “So lang das Deutsche Reich besteht, wird Schraube fest nach rechts gedreht” - “As long as the German Reich exists, a screw is tightened by turning right”
I’m German, and I’ve never heard that before. I’d be seriously weirded out by someone saying that or teaching it to their kids
I have to admit that this is rather old. So old, in fact, that it does not refer to the Third Reich but the Kaiserreich.
I don’t think anyone thought it was about the third reich
Never underestimate the incompetence of people, especially in the US, with regards to history. Just look how they are basically trying to recreate Germany’s 1933 at the moment.
Probably someone did. Not all English-speakers know about the first two, even though they’re implied by “third”.
I daresay that 99% of “English-speakers” never wasted a thought on why the Third Reich actually was the third.
And honestly, it could be that 90% wouldn’t know what the HRE was or who the Kaiser was once you told them. It’s just not a thing that usually comes up in everyday life.
Yup this was me. I knew it was the third, but it never occurred to me to ask what the other 2 were
TBH I knew about the Kaiserreich, but I had to look up the first one myself. It was the Holy Roman Empire. (Which wasn’t really much of a reich, but the Nazi’s weren’t noted for their attention to historical accuracy)
still mentioned twice in the thread. It‘s fucked up how often one would come across Germans casually throwing around Nazi language, looking for confirmation and when not receiving it claiming it’s just innocent fun. HiHiHi
Well, but is actually is not Nazi language in this case.
you think people don’t use it in that context?
also, because you‘re so adamant, I tried to find a source for your claim. I failed. Want to share?
My source is my grandfather, who learned this during his vocational training, which predates the Nazis by quite a few years.
That’s better but not that by much. A few years ago Germany raided some very rich and very well-armed wackos who wanted to bring back the Kaiserreich.
Just like a number of very rich and well armed wackos want to bring back Trump in the US.
German conspiracy wackos and American ones have a lot in common.
During COVID their bullshit ven diagram was a flat circle.
yeah, this one is only for inside voice. I won’t be teaching it to anyone anymore.
So … shouldn’t German screws now turn to the left?
See!!! This is why communism is bad!! Since you’ve started turning everything to the left, it’s all come apart!!
Never heard of this. We say ‘auf links, rechts zu’ and simply order the words alphabetically
I just have it in muscle memory to know which way soda bottle cap tightens
Gas valves famously use the opposite direction
Propane, but I’m pretty sure natural gas uses regular NPT.
“La derecha oprime y la izquierda libera”
The right oppresses, the left liberates
Never heard of that. When attending a trade school there was never the necessity of a mnemotechnic to know in which direction turn the tool.
As other mentioned this kind of phrase is useless if you are in the opposite side of the thing you want to tighten/loose.
What I always heard is “la regla del destornillador” (the screwdriver rule), as a substitute for the right hand rule.
People on the other side don’t deserve a mnemonic.
I can’t think of an equivalent phrase in Bulgarian for that, but it’s known that [most] threads tighten when turning clockwise… and if you don’t know what direction the clock goes, what are you even doing with screws or bolts…
And again there are special cases even outside of threads - for example in plumbing there are some valves that are open when the handle is parallel to the pipe and closed when the handle is perpendicular - and it might just happen that the closing motion happens counterclockwise.
reverse threads are also found on things like bicycles and cars which have parts that spin counter clockwise
Made me feel like I was crazy the first time I installed pedals on a bike.
Yep, I’m familiar with those - on almost any bycicle the left pedal would tighten to the crank counterclockwise.
Except for the stupid friggin discount stationary bike my wife bought. That must be the exception you’re referring to…
did it keep falling apart? That’s amazing
The Spanish version is my favourite: la derecha oprime y la izquierda libera (the right oppresses and the left liberates)
Oh wow that one is really good :D
Holy shit, fucking hell, now this is some goddamn wordplay!
I’m stealing this like the fucking British Museum.
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
I’m using this in every language I speak from now on!
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?
The starting point is on the top.
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.
ok but what is behind this picture? I see fur and old matted flesh? a paw with no nails or an old dogs snout?!?!
It’s better to not ask questions sometimes.
backs away slowly
This has always annoyed me too. I know why it works, but it’s clockwise and counter-(or anti-)clockwise. If you were turning from the bottom, left and right are mixed up. Maybe it’s just too hard to come up with a phrase using those terms?
Clockwise=lockwise
“Eins og kókflaska” or “Same as a Coca Cola bottle”, not universal in Iceland though
Probably a result of turning wrenches since I was first able, but that rule, to me, feels akin to “up the stairs take you up, down the stairs take you down”.
Filing your staircase mnemonic in my mind right next to this banger for the Great Lakes.
The right oppresses, the left liberates
A nice thought until you run into a left handed thread…
Or when you’re screwing in a screw from behind/under something while lying upside down using a ratchet with an angled extender and you aren’t sure which way is actually left/right where the screw is.
Got that tee shirt too!
And you feel so incredibly dense every time you run into it and you can’t figure out what’s going on. The crank on my kids bike was out of whack the other week and I kept tightening it down and it kept coming back loose. I was turning the crank one way to tighten it which was pushing it against the lock nut but it needed to turn the other way to be pushed against the bearing before I tighten the lock nut down. If it was all right-handed it would have been clear what I was doing.
Spindles and shafting are places you can find left handed threads. And it depends on the direction of rotation like that bike crank. Can’t have things coming lose due to the way bike cranks turn, so they a left handed thread to stay tight.
It took me a long to time learn that when dealing with such things that I need to stop, look, and think about how things are assembled and why.
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.
Neat. Would be engineering related lol
In English, there’s also “clockwise-lockwise”. It makes more sense than talking about left and right.
I’m gonna try this with my son, he knows with way clocks go better than his left and right.
Finnish doesn’t have one. We just learn it by instinct and use the time saved to warm up the sauna.
I never really got that one, because “left” vs “right” only works when you are looking at the top of the screw. At the bottom, left tightens, and right loosens. So the one I remember is “clockwise to close”.
Edit: the image on the post is actually a good example. If I’m off the screen to the right holding the spanner, then from my perspective, “left” would tighten.
It works for screws, but as a kid, I was never sure if the clock on the wall should be visualized attached to the ceiling or on the floor when saying “clockwise”. So I was always a bit hessitant on that.
Agreed. If the screw moves left or right, it fell out of its hole, lol. I guess “clockwise” is hard to rhyme.
