Where did the words north, south, east, and west come form, and why were the four directions named so?
199912
'north' is from Proto-Germanic *norð (of unknown origin); 'south' is from Proto-Germanic *sunð (possibly from Proto-Germanic *sunnon 'sun' + -ð); 'east' is from Proto-Germanic *austo- from Proto-Indo-European *aus- 'dawn'; 'west' is from Proto-Germanic *westaz from Proto-Indo-European *wes- 'evening'
330468
i believe the expression was 1st used by a writer in a novel, one of the spy writers,(le Carre or Shute or someone of that genre) but i can't think of his name at the moment.\n\nAnd i belive it is both because relations between East and West became cold after WW2 and also becasue no actually fighting took place, it was more a battle of the minds as opposed to a typical war.
40715
The above answer was quite lengthy with added content.\n\nIt appears that "moon" is old english.\n\nThe "luna" part is Latin.  It was in Roman times, that the moon made people crazy, hence the word "lunatic".
351834
i'm not 100% sure, but i'm taking US history and we were talking about that and it comes from a spanish term very similar to the term "yankee" and i'm not entirly sure what it means or how its spelled its pronouced "yawnkee" i believe.  that was the term for the Union and since the South wasn't a part of the Union in the Civil War then i guess thats why the North was referred to as "yankees".\n\nI hope that helps.
121761
C. North.\n\nCompass directions are not proper nouns and are not capitalized when used to described relative position (New York City is north of Washington, D.C.) or to give directional instructions (go north 10 miles). In this example however, "the North" is used as a place name and therefore becomes a proper noun.\n\nAnswers A and B are both incorrect.\nMcKinley is a place name and should be capitalized.\nGerman is a language name and should be capitalized.
330875
North and south geographic poles. A compass points towards the North magnetic pole, which is why you must correct for your magnetic declination to find true north using a compass. \n\nSince probably 1000 AD, navigation, however has relied on watching the skies more than watching a compass. Therefore, due north or south  is always the direction to that point in the sky that all the stars circle, projected down to the surface of the earth, and those positions in the sky are projections of the geographic pole (Polaris is actually about 0.8 degrees off the north celestial pole. If north was based on polaris, north would change by as much as 1.6 degrees depending on what time it is!)
617088
According to the English, it is derived from a place name indicating that they came from a place near the woods, or perhaps a grove of trees. My guess is that it is of Scandinavian origin and can be found all over Northern Europe.
54785
The above answer is correct: it has more to do with geology.  Also, Europe invented the map, so they got to do whatever they wanted with it.  The boundaries of Europe extend from Portugal north to Iceland, then around the Scandinavian countries to the Ural Mountians in Russia, south and west around the boundaries of Ukraine to Istanbul, Turkey, and back.
332884
From the West was the mountains, especially in the Southwest we have the Himalayas. Mountains slow down the travel speed.\n\nThe east has the oceans. They're pretty deep, and some areas are pretty deadly. Death can occur if one isn't careful.\n\nThe north has the Gobi Desert. There are no hiding places there, especially the desert patch along the Great Wall. Historians have concluded that Chinese soldiers guided the water to their territory; thus the plants cannot grow and provide hiding places.\n\nThe south has wet areas, like marshes. That also slows things down.
643715
do you mean the hemispheres?\n\ntry http://en.wikipedia.org
11159
umm, north attracts south, south repels south, north repels north... its the same with negative and positive...
432399
Most of the possible answers have already been listed, or hinted at.  But to put it all together.\n\nThe sort of word you describe is called an "ambigram" -- the idea is to use calligraphy to make words look that same viewed from any direction.\n\nDan Brown used this idea in his book *Angels and Demons*, esp. with the word "Illuminati" (Background: An expert in this sort of calligraphy caught the attention of mathematician Dick Brown, who commissioned the man to make one of the name of his son Dan.)    BUT please note that in any ORDINARY type "Illuminati" is NOT an ambigram, and that all sorts of words can be turned into one by clever calligraphy.\n\nAlso note that, unless you cheat about capitalization rules, you have to use only upper or lower case.\n\nSo, for ordinary use --with 'normal' sorts of scripts-- we are left with the following building blocks.\n\n\nUsing only upper-case, which gives us the most possibilities.\n*Seven letters which can be used this way:  H I O N S X Z\n*In addition, M and W are mirror-opposites in many scripts, so can be used as pair.\n\nThis gives us:\n\n1) two one-letter words:  I,   O\n2) three two-letter words:  SIS, OHO and MOW  (XOX, OXO and SOS are generally treated as abbreviations)\n3) one four-letter word:  NOON\n4) one five-letter word: SWIMS   (again, as with "MOW" above, only in certain scripts)\n\nThere may be some longer ones, but it would take some doing to figure them out.\n\n(I'm also leaving out proper names -- like "ONO"-- since by digging in other languages you might find or create any number!)\n\n\nUsing lower-case:  \n*mirror-letters: o, l, s, x, z    (nearly the same as with upper case, except n doesn't work and l replaces I)\n*mirror-pairs:  d - p,  b - q (though the latter is not very useful!)\n( m and w may work, but not in as many scripts) \n\nResults, not very good if you use proper capitalization:\n1) from the list above "sis" and "mow" MIGHT work  (though it should be "Sis".  In any case, not "I" and "O", since in English, when they are used as distinct words they are always supposed to be capitalized)\n2) in addition:   "pod"\n\nThat's about it.   Of course, with minor cheating in some scripts you could make a couple of other letters into mirror letters.  For instance -- t, which would add at least: tot, toot, otto.\nOr you could smuggle in an "i" without the dot [more serious cheating!] to add "dip" and make "swims" work again.
195706
I was also taught that there were 7:\n\nNorth America, South America, Africa, Asia, Europe, Antarctica, Australia.\n\nI was a student in American schools. I have also heard of the "Eurasia" concept of combining Europe and Asia.  In truth Europe and Asia are ONE continent but because of cultural and physical reasons (meaning Race), early Europeans who first listed the continents wanted to distinguish themselves from Asians and declared Europe a separate continent.
612575
I don't know if it's in the Quran but I'd been taught to use the left.  Apparently you do everything with the right and only use the left on the loo.
69301
Well, if you have different parts of the world, the languages of that area will affect what it is called, even in one language like English. English is easily adaptable and pretty much the most flexible in terms of adopting words from other languages. \n\nFrom the first source we have a very good, detailed description of where the word typhoon comes from:\n"Word History: The history of typhoon presents a perfect example of the long journey that many words made in coming to English. It traveled from Greece to Arabia to India, and also arose independently in China, before assuming its current form in our language. The Greek word tuphn, used both as the name of the father of the winds and a common noun meaning “whirlwind, typhoon,” was borrowed into Arabic during the Middle Ages, when Arabic learning both preserved and expanded the classical heritage and passed it on to Europe and other parts of the world. fn, the Arabic version of the Greek word, passed into languages spoken in India, where Arabic-speaking Muslim invaders had settled in the 11th century. Thus the descendant of the Arabic word, passing into English (first recorded in 1588) through an Indian language and appearing in English in forms such as touffon and tufan, originally referred specifically to a severe storm in India. The modern form of typhoon was influenced by a borrowing from the Cantonese variety of Chinese, namely the word taaîfung, and respelled to make it look more like Greek. Taaîfung, meaning literally “great wind,” was coincidentally similar to the Arabic borrowing and is first recorded in English guise as tuffoon in 1699. The various forms coalesced and finally became typhoon, a spelling that first appeared in 1819 in Shelley's Prometheus Unbound."\n\nFrom the second source, the origins of cyclone and hurricane:\n"The word hurricane is derived from the name of a native Caribbean Amerindian storm god, Huracan, via Spanish huracán.\nThe word cyclone is from the Greek 'κύκλος', meaning 'circle.' An Egyptian word Cykline meaning to 'to spin' has been cited as a possible origin."
76971
It's because left and right are relative terms, while up and down refer more to absolutes.  If were facing east looking into a mirror, our right hand would be south, and our left hand north.  Referred to north and south, there is no inversion--move your "north hand" and the image's "north hand" moves; move your south hand and the images south hand moves.  The problem is that left/right is a special sort of orientation that is centered from ourselves and distinguishes from two symmetrical sides of ourselves.  You right hand looks like the reflection of you left hand, but when you look at the reflection of your left hand, that reflect is still on *your* left.  If you imagine that the image reflected is some different person, and you try to set up a left/right orientation with resepct to the person in the mirror, it will be backwards--but that's only because it is erroneous to think that the reflection of your right hand is your reflection's left hand.  It isn't; it just looks like a left hand because our bodies display left/right symmetry.  If your head looked like the mirror image of your feet, you might make the same mistake, but the body does not display any manner of top/bottom symmetry.
355843
I've heard it all my life, for sure. \n\nI found it for you, at the infoplease dictionary.\n\nhttp://www.infoplease.com/ipd/A0364702.html\n\ncat•a•wam•pus\n\nPronunciation: (kat"u-wom'pus), [key] Chiefly Midland and Southern U.S. \n\n—adj. \n1. askew; awry. \n2. positioned diagonally; cater-cornered. \n\n—adv. \ndiagonally; obliquely: We took a shortcut and walked catawampus across the field. Also,cattywampus.