left right stuff

[Jonathan Lighter]

This is such an ingrained move that I've never heard it called anything.

But now that we have named it, we are empowered to interrogate and break free of it.
DIRECT LEFT TURNS FOREVER !  FOREVER !

JL

Jeff Prucher <jprucher at YAHOO.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Jeff Prucher
Subject: Re: left right stuff
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It helps to bear in mind the adage "two wrongs don't make a right, but three
lefts do."

All this reminds me of what we called a "Detroit left" back in Ann Arbor
(although my mother-in-law, who is not a native Michigander, calls it a
Michigan left), where, in order to turn left onto a busy street you have to
first turn right (onto said busy street) and then make a U-turn, at which point
you will be going the correct way, although you probably have to wait at the
intersection again.

Jeff Prucher

> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: "Bethany K. Dumas"
> Subject: left right stuff
>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >>> >> 17. The left turn is simple. If you want to turn left, go a 1/4 of
> >>> a mile
> >>> >> past your turn, get to the left, then make a left, then make a right.
> >>> >> NOW you have gone left.
>
> What am I missing? It seems to me that if you turn left (as your
> originally intended), then turn right, you have in fact turned right,
> not left.
>
> Thanks,
> Bethany
>
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