Nearside and offside: Why?
Discussion
braddo said:
Captain Muppet said:
Chatting to some horsey people over lunch that does seem to be where it comes from. There was some speculation that it stops your sword getting in the way.
Wouldn't the sword have always been on the person's right hand side which would make mounting a horse from the right hand side easier (i.e. not needing to get the sword over the back of horse)? Not that I ride horses, or carry swords, so it is of little importance to me!In any case, using 'nearside' and 'offside' for cars is peculiar to the UK and a f
king stupid convention. 
Also we'd noticed than any film in which a character has a sword on their back they are never shown drawing it unless it's a really short one - you can't draw a sword fixed to your shoulder that's longer than your arm.
I'm the only one here who actually likes 'N/S' and 'O/S' then? seems pretty natural to me, although when I have used them in conversation it almost invariably results on 'which side is that?' sort of questions. I put that down to their stupidity rather than my excessive car geekery though.
doogz said:
We use port and starboard, or regularly just the distance off centreline, with port being positive, stbd being negative. Or inboard and outboard, depending on what we're talking about. But never left or right.
We also use the carline X,Y,Z coordinates. X = length of car, Y = width of car, Z = down a wormhole (aka height).doogz said:
kambites said:
Yuck, that feels completely the wrong way around to me. Negative numbers should go on the left (no idea why, it just feels like they should).
Right hand rule. Forwards, up, and left are positive.
kambites said:
Captain Muppet said:
You carry your sword on the opposite side to your dominant hand, unless you want to risk hacking your own kidney out. I used to fence, and we'd muck about with this sort of thing.
I'd like to see you cut your kidney out drawing an Épée. 
I once got a finger cut to the bone with a Sabre, even though it was a regulation blunt springy one. Never put your ungloved hand in front of your body.
doogz said:
GroundEffect said:
We also use the carline X,Y,Z coordinates. X = length of car, Y = width of car, Z = down a wormhole (aka height).
Do you have some sort of centre point you work from or measure things from?We measure up from the baseline, forward from the aft perpendicular, and left or right from the centreline.
doogz said:
GroundEffect said:
We also use the carline X,Y,Z coordinates. X = length of car, Y = width of car, Z = down a wormhole (aka height).
Do you have some sort of centre point you work from or measure things from?We measure up from the baseline, forward from the aft perpendicular, and left or right from the centreline.
Zero for engines is crank centreline on the rear face of block.
doogz said:
kambites said:
Probably why I'm a mathematician not an engineer. Which way around would you draw a standard two-axis graph? If you'd put the positive numbers on the left of the zero line, you're odd.
TBF, I thought it was odd in the first place. You get used to it.Which way around would you draw a standard 2 axis graph? Right hand rule, your y axis is positive 90 degrees counter clockwise to your x axis.
HustleRussell said:
I'm the only one here who actually likes 'N/S' and 'O/S' then? seems pretty natural to me, although when I have used them in conversation it almost invariably results on 'which side is that?' sort of questions. I put that down to their stupidity rather than my excessive car geekery though.
Excellent, so which side is the nearside of a GDM but UK registered E30 M3 parked facing on-coming traffic in Paris?Also which is the neaside of two consecutive chassis numbered E30 M3s one of which is GDM and the other of which is UKDM? I'm pretty sure the nearside of the UK one is left, and the German one is right.
Which would mean that you'd need to order a nearside door from Germany to replace your offside door in the UK. Although as soon as you unbolt it from the car it's just a right hand door, because the whole nearside/offside thing can't cope with parts, only cars when parked next to a kerb with a clearly defined side of the road for normal travel.
Of course the label on the door would say "R" on it, because BMW are a global company that don't use horse terms to needlessly double their stock of spare parts.
It's odd that no one at all says that the UK drives on the nearside, we all drive on the left.
Although as you say, I may just be too stupid to understand the thing.
HustleRussell said:
I'm the only one here who actually likes 'N/S' and 'O/S' then? seems pretty natural to me, although when I have used them in conversation it almost invariably results on 'which side is that?' sort of questions. I put that down to their stupidity rather than my excessive car geekery though.
Incorrect attribution. The most experience that most people have of these terms would be if they get an advisory/fail notice on their car's MOT, in which case n/s and o/s are just more (unnecessarily) confusing jargon for the average punter.Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff