Eli5: Why do people mix up left and right but not up and down?

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Eli5: Why do people mix up left and right but not up and down?

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17 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Up and down are very different. Left and right are pretty much the same, just mirrored. We even have a very common word for “either left or right”: it’s “side”.

People who confuse the two probably think about things more in terms of being to the side of something than specifically to the left or right of something. In many cases it doesn’t matter and is a more efficient way to remember concepts, but when it does matter it takes some effort to figure out which side is the correct one.

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