UKH

Hi folks,

I'm translating some descriptions of multi-day hikes from Italian to English. I have a question about terminology. When describing position, in Italian there is a universally-accepted system of using "sinistra/destra orografica". This roughly translates to "orographic left/right", which means imagining a water course, and staying to its true right bank; in other words, staying to the right side of the river facing the direction of travel of a real or imagined river. So if we're talking about, for example, ascending a valley (which may or may not have a water course) and the route description says "ascend the valley, keeping to the "orographic right", you need to stay on the "walker's left" side of the valley. I'm pretty certain we don't use "orographic left/right" in English, so what would you say? Is there a similar "absolute" reference in English or do we say "Walker's left/right"? Summat else? 

Hope that's clear. Suggestions gratefully received.

True left (or right) is the usual thing.

Cheers Adrian.

Having googled it, Adrian is correct. However it's not a term I'm familiar with. For a walking guide might it not be better to to say something like “ascend the valley, keeping the river on your left” to remove ambiguity for the reader?

Could be...but if there's no river, or it's a glacier...perhaps: ..."staying on the left-hand side of the valley"...but to my mind that could be a bit ambiguous.

I was familiar with "the true left/right" of the river...but not of a valley. Is it standard practice to use it for a glacier...or a valley with no river? Or perhaps I'm splitting hairs...

Maybe it's a NZ vs UK thing but it's quite commonly used here and yes - it's the same for any drainage including glaciers.

We'll also sometimes use skier's left or climber's right but I think that's inviting confusion!

Paddlers would understand, using the terms "river left /right". Most walkers would be very confused.

More usual might be "Ascend the valley with the river on your Right" or, if not too meandering, "Ascend the valley following the South bank of the river" which makes it easier to follow the route in reverse. 

Could use East/West/North/South instead? 

I think true L/R is a standard UK thing - I've certainly made sure my DofE pupils understand it for more than 20 years.

It crops up in other places.  When talking about red Bordeaux you'd refer to left and right bank clarets, and the direction indicated is with the river flow.

Interestingly the google hits I got for the term were all NZ websites.

I'll defer to Jamie that it's a term he's taught his DoE groups for a number of years (and now I know what it is I can see the logic behind it). However I'll confess that as someone who's a fairly competent navigator in his mid 50's I can't recall seeing it in print or used in conversation.

Given the translation is for a guide book user, rather than someone with qualifications/training in navigation, I'd personally be wary of using it.

Some of your audience will get "true right bank" and some won't.  Remove ambiguity by stating what it means, ahead of the description.  As an engineer  i was taught to avoid doubt by making communication bleedin obvious

Absolutely. Treat this as a teaching opportunity.

I always use climbers L/R for looking up hill and skiers L/R for looking down it. irrespective of that, i have never been confused when reading a guidebook as to what it means so i think you are overthinking this issue! i should imagine its pretty obvious, if a guide is describing an approach and says "left hand side of valley", it refers to the left in which ever direction you are approaching from.

I think I've seen reference to this in the front of an FRCC guide but didn't spot any usage in the text, and the explanation in the guide wasn't terribly clear.

Personally I wouldn't use the term. It might be nice and quirky, but it's not in common enough usage (in the UK at least) to be widely understood and will lead to confusion. You could well put an explanatory note into the front of the book, but that's eating into page space that you might want to use on something else. Furthermore, it's likely to be overlooked by 90% of your readers who will never look at those introductory pages. And even more furthermore, it might be that the person reading your book is trying to do it while at the same time walking along a rocky footpath and wiping sweat from their brow, so you may not have their full attention.

I'd go with "keep the river on your right" which is immediately understandable. If it's becoming repetetive or clunky then refer to the cardinal points.

Many thanks to all for your replies! I've opted for the "avoid doubt...keep it bleedin' obvious approach", as the readers are unlikely to be exclusively mother tongue (or experienced for that matter!)

Remember being flummoxed by "orographique" when using the Guides Ollivier  mountaineering guides to the Pyrenees in the 70s. Could find no translation in any French-English dictionary. Later I did...."orographical". I've since used in my head the ponderous: right/left side as water would flow eg droite orographique being left facing in in relation to a cliff or hillside.

My French was poor, got into  difficulty several times as I knew "droite" was right, so wrongly assumed "tout droit" meant all or sharp right (for anyone not familiar with French the difference is with the final "e" and the term means "straight ahead").

A bit like in English:

go right (turn / veer right)

go right to (all the way)

An interesting linguistic paralell

As others have said 'True Left/Right' is fairly accepted but not everyone is familiar with it. I have heard that initially it was a New Zealand thing but it is definitely used in the UK. 

If I were you, I would use that terminology but explain what you are doing in the introduction. This is the approach that Garry Smith uses in his 'North Wales Scrambles' book.

Mehmet