The world has a lot of different standards for a lot of things, but I have never heard of a place with the default screw thread direction being opposite.
So does each language have a fun mnemonic?
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I think it’s fairly parochial, and sounds quite infantile to me. Growing up (uk) we just used clockwise to tighten.
It doesn’t even bloody work, lefty tighty righty loosy is every bit as valid if the spanner is at the bottom.
Apple: User - you are holding it wrong!
The spanner is always at 12 o’clock. Either turn yourself or the spanner or your point of view to make it so and then the rule holds. The last option require imagination.
Take the piss after you have tried to thread a nut on a bolt that you cannot see and tightening it is towards you, at an angle. The nut has to cross a hack sawed thread and will try to cross thread 75% of the time unless the moon is in Venus.
Have a chat with some plumbers, builders, chippies, sparkys or engineers - assuming you are not one already. I think “leftie loosey …” is well known in the UK.
I like this one more.
I can’t think of an equivalent phrase in Bulgarian for that, but it’s known that [most] threads tighten when turning clockwise… and if you don’t know what direction the clock goes, what are you even doing with screws or bolts…
And again there are special cases even outside of threads - for example in plumbing there are some valves that are open when the handle is parallel to the pipe and closed when the handle is perpendicular - and it might just happen that the closing motion happens counterclockwise.
reverse threads are also found on things like bicycles and cars which have parts that spin counter clockwise
Yep, I’m familiar with those - on almost any bycicle the left pedal would tighten to the crank counterclockwise.
Except for the stupid friggin discount stationary bike my wife bought. That must be the exception you’re referring to…
That’s why it’s discounted…
I remember it as right hand screw rule
The right oppresses, the left liberates
Lmao
Ah yes the famed spaniard mao
I’m Norwegian. I never learned a rule in my language and always just went by instinct. Until ~3rd year of university in physics where someone told me tha the right-hand-rule applies to screws. Now I use that everywhere for screws in strange positions.
I’m indian and learns right hand screw rule in high school physics
Can you elaborate? I googled the right hand rule, but I’m not seeing how it applies to screws.
Grab around a screw with your right hand and extend your thumb (like a thumbs up). Then rotating the screw in the direction which your fingers are pointing will result in the screw moving in the direction your thumb is pointing.
Thumbs up for lifting the screw upwards, thumbs down for screwing the screw downwards. And you can move your hand around to figure out screwing directions for any tricky spots.
Great explanation, thanks
Beware the left handed screws, they’re around but rare. My last encounter was inside a vacuum cleaner motor assembly.
Propane and propane accessories also use left-handed threading. It can be really weird to get used to after a lifetime of righty tighty.
Well, this was a life-changing comment.
I do not know of one in hungarian.
The only one I know of is “open counter clockwise”, but after consuming too much media in English I use “righty tighty…”.
I use “Clock-in, counter-out”
Never heard it in Polish but we generally don’t need a mnemonic to remember which side is left and which is right (except in politics).
In Dutch we have DROL, Dicht recht, open links. So close right, open left as a very strict translation. But DROL is also Dutch for turd.
Huh, I always say links los, rechts rotsvast
A droll factoid.
Never heard of that, I just remembered from my dad that clockwise is tight and counterclockwise is loose.
Same here, except for my dad, he is clumsy as hell.
Nope. Polish doesn’t have one.
Neither does Czech.
Neither does Russian. We only share right-hand rule from physics.
Nothing in Slovak either. Slavs got srewed.
I never could remember until I was well in my 20s nd heard the righty tighty thing in HIMYM of all places
It depends which bicycle pedal you’re screwing in. They have opposite threads, designed where they’re self tightening on each side.
If I remember correctly, old timey glass kerosene lanterns also have backwards threads for some reason
Gas threads and water threads are opposites to each other for safety reasons. Might be part of that thought.
Bottlescrews and turnbuckles both have one end threaded in each direction.
Exactly! Bicycle pedals have a left-hand thread on the left-hand side and “normal” threads on the right-hand side.
Same with gas regulators that attach to the cylinders, for some reason. Oo and some hub nuts on cars
I’ve heard flammable gas uses reverse (left hand) thread to prevent cross connection. At least for welding gases in NZ; not sure about natural gas.
Acetylene does, gas lines are standard pipe.
Suppose it’s cause natural gas runs at like, 1-3 psi, while a fresh tank of acetylene is 5,000?
Least in the US
Please tell Tongshen, who manufactures the popular TSDZ2 motor. The pedal keeps coming loose because they don’t do this. I keep a key on me to tighten it when it starts to loosen.
Count it outer clockwise
Crank it right in?
Lefty righty, loosie tighty.
Finnish doesn’t have one. We just learn it by instinct and use the time saved to warm up the sauna.
“warm up the sauna”
I get slapped when I try that sort of thing on with Sauna.
Or we pretend to be opening a Koskenkorva bottle in whatever orientation the bolt is in.
with proper application of sisu, it will open in both directions
Same for Denmark. Except instead of warming up the sauna, it creates time for another Tuborg.
We have that in Gujarati “navde nokhu satde sajjad”
Google translated it as “Nine days and seven days are tight”.
Does that sound like a good translation to you?
No it’s more like “lose like nine and tight like seven”. It works because of the way Gujarati numerals are structured.
That’s interesting, thank you. I didn’t know anything about Gujarati, this is a cool opportunity to learn!
