Widdershins

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, my name is Masha.

Hi, Masha, where are you calling from?

I’m calling from Auburn, Alabama.

Auburn, Alabama, welcome to the show.

I feel like I’m from New York, although I’ve lived in Alabama for a while.

Okay.

No one understands when I say, I’m all literatures.

And to me, it’s a usual expression.

But since no one understands it, I actually sort of,

Well, I don’t say it anymore.

What do you mean by it?

What do you mean when you say you’re all Wittershins?

A kind of confused state.

Okay.

But no, I’ve never heard anyone else use that word except for a friend of mine who named a cat Wittershins.

Oh, they named their cat Wittershins.

I wonder if they got that from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I think there was a cat named Wittershins on that show.

Oh, no kidding.

Yeah, well, that sort of makes sense.

I haven’t heard people talk about themselves as being all Wittershins.

I mean, I usually think of that as simply counterclockwise.

But it does connect to the older idea that Wittershins meant unlucky,

Because you were going counter to the laws of nature.

Right.

Originally, it was about the direction of the sun, right?

Well, Wittershins is against the direction of the sun, right?

Yeah.

East to west.

Yeah.

Or west-east.

Right, right.

If you look at the way a sundial works, it works in a clockwise fashion,

At least in the northern hemisphere.

That expression actually is expressive of how I would be feeling when I’m calling myself back.

Right, right. You’re kind of going in the wrong direction.

Yeah. Why did I do that?

And Masha, I can give you a word for when things are going right as well.

Oh, I would love that.

Yeah, the opposite of Wittershins is diesel, D-E-A-S-I-L.

It’s related to the Latin word dexter, meaning right.

It means going in the right direction.

I love having a new word.

It makes me feel rich.

You are.

You are.

You are.

You can add that to your word hoard.

Widershins, by the way.

We should spell Widershins.

Yes.

Because it’s W-I-D-D-E-R-S-H-I-N-S.

Widershins.

Yeah.

Sometimes it’s spelled with a T-H.

Widershins.

Yeah, Widershins.

Do we have etymology on that?

We think it’s a Germanic term that just goes back to words that mean against the direction.

Oh, okay.

Against the direction of the sun.

Cool.

Masha, thank you so much for your call today.

Well, thank you very much.

All right.

Take care.

We’ll have enjoyed it.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Grant, did you know that recently in Bolivia, the head of the country changed the clock on the congressional building, the official clock, so now it goes Wittershins?

Why?

It’s sort of an anti-colonial measure because apparently clockwise is associated with the northern hemisphere.

Why didn’t they just start using, I mean, if they really wanted to reject colonialism using the quipu, the knotted cords that the Inca used to record, right?

You know, just take it all the way.

You’ve got to have clocks, right, in this day and age.

So, yeah, I mean, if you can go online and see pictures of this clock that goes 12, 11, 10, 9.

It keeps the time correctly.

Sure, right.

But it goes the other way.

Whatever floats your boat, man, or whatever turns your clock.

It’s pretty cool.

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