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| In 20 years, my life has come full circle, 360 degrees for real. People often say 360 degrees when they mean 180. They say full circle when they’re really tal
by dpeck 8y ago
| In 20 years, my life has come full circle, 360 degrees for real. People often say 360 degrees when they mean 180. They say full circle when they’re really talking about a semicircle.
I've never experience this, is it common for some group of people to use 180 to mean "the same" vs "completely different"?
- mywittyname 8y agoThat caught my eye too. Maybe it's a west coast thing. In the midwest, to do a 180 is to go in a completely different direction, and to come full-circle is to return to where you were after some long journey.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- PhasmaFelis 8y agoThat's what "180" means everywhere. There's just some people who get confused and say "360" when they mean "180".
- rconti 8y agoNo, I think she just poorly wrote it. "Coming full circle" always means to return to where you started. But sometimes people say "turned it around 360 degrees" when they really mean 180.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y agoIsn't a full circle 360 degrees though? Coming back to where you started makes sense in a 180 degree turn, you're now looking back on your previous path and looking at the origin.
- magduf 8y agoYep, Americans don't understand basic geometry any more.
- dqpb 8y ago> Maybe it's a west coast thing. Well, they did just blow $77 billion dollars on a non existent high speed rail. So yeah, maybe it is a West coast thing.
- coderintherye 8y agoCalifornia did not spend $77 billion. It spent around $5.4 billion https://www.hoover.org/research/after-spending-54-billion-californias-bullet-train-still-going-nowhere https://www.hoover.org/research/after-spending-54-billion-ca...
- phjesusthatguy3 8y agoThere was a joke when the XBox 360 came out: "it's called the 360 because your turn 360 degrees and walk away" but that doesn't answer your question, sorry.
- warkdarrior 8y agoNo, but it is common to use 360 to mean "completely different". Random example: https://waynestiles.com/how-to-turn-your-life-around-360-degrees/ https://waynestiles.com/how-to-turn-your-life-around-360-deg...
- SketchySeaBeast 8y agoI'm incredibly confused. That's just a blatant disregard for math. I guess maybe if you change while turning you end up in the same place, changed, but different, and possibly dizzy?
- retsibsi 8y agoHere (Australia) the phrase 'backflip' is sometimes used to deride a politician's change of mind. I guess if there's enough twisting and turning involved, we don't think too hard about the end result when creating these metaphors.
- jlarocco 8y agoI don't think it is common. The correct phrase, and what I've always heard, is "180 degrees", meaning "the opposite direction". I can imagine "360 degrees" being used by people who are bad at math or not thinking about it, though. In the article the author really means 360, though, because she's back where she started.
- edgarvaldes 8y agoI dunno about other languages, but in Spanish it is pretty common both the error and the immediate correction by any bystander.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ciupicri 8y agoThe movie "Last Action Hero" (1993) has a joke about this [1], so maybe this mistake is quite common. [1]: https://youtu.be/g751-jjKXC0 https://youtu.be/g751-jjKXC0
- bay12please 8y agoThis. https://youtu.be/g751-jjKXC0 https://youtu.be/g751-jjKXC0