When describing the direction an object is moving, does one describe it from the object’s point of view, or the observer’s point of view?
In weather forecasts, the common standard is to describe the direction from which the wind originates. That is, a north or northerly wind blows from the north to the south. If one is facing north into a northerly wind, one gets hit in the face with it. I always thought this was backwards because I took the perspective of the wind and thought a northerly wind was blowing to the north. The “-ly” especially made it sound like an adverb that described the wind’s action.
Interestingly, in surfing, the standard takes the opposite approach: the direction describes the way the wind is going. An onshore wind blows toward the shore. An offshore wind blows off the shore.
Is it more intuitive for most people to think from the perspective of their faces getting blasted rather than from the perspective of the wind itself? Perhaps. I’m curious to know more about the origins of the conventions for wind direction.
Another similar divide is how to describe scroll direction on a laptop trackpad or computer mouse. Currently Mac OS uses the term “natural” to mean that the content follows the direction one is moving one’s finger(s) while scrolling and sets this as the default. Windows defaults to the opposite approach. The naming and default of “natural” scroll direction is controversial. My wife embraces natural scroll direction on her laptop. I still think of this as not at all “natural” because I grew up using computers in the late 80s and early 90s where the metaphor was that the scroll wheel moved the viewport or the on-screen scrollbar, rather than moving the content directly. Tedium gives a good deep dive on the history and points out that
Essentially, this default isn’t for you; it’s for your kids, who presumably will use a touchscreen long before they ever touch a trackpad.