Posted by Robert Hill on March 04, 2004 at 00:57:28 from 195.92.168.179 user eclrh.
In Reply to: Re: widdershins? posted by Peter Ceresole on March 03, 2004 at 20:22:57:
Apparently (I saw this in an Oxford Current English so it must be true) it relates not to any kind of counter-clockwise, but against the direction of motion of the sun.
Well, it's the pretty much same thing really, isn't it? Clocks were invented in the northern hemisphere. More to the point (since the first mechanical clocks just rang bells) the later invention of clocks with dials and hands was also in the northern hemisphere. Clocks were probably made to go clockwise because the shadow on a sundial went clockwise.
I don't currently have access to the online OED or the SOD, but I suppose "widdershins", or words much like it, go back before clocks.
It does raise the question though: if you live in the southern hemisphere, which way should you call widdershins?
Auf wiedersehen