Slightly to the side

Did you know that Earth's tilt affects the school year?

We might refer to Planet Earth as ‘the globe’, but we know it is more like a slightly flattened sphere —experts would say it’s an oblate spheroid— that is also askew. These two details have major consequences for the climate, the night sky, the way we register locations, and even the way schools plan their academic year. How much does the Earth's being at an angle affect us? Let’s find out!

Why is Earth’s axis tilted? The most widely accepted theory is that, millions of years ago, a young planet Earth collided with another celestial body and was left permanently askew. Earth’s axis, supposedly straight before, now has a tilt of 23.5 degrees. It is also believed that the Moon is a product of this collision.

The Earth is permanently tilted, but it’s not static. The degree of the tilt varies slightly across a cycle of thousands of years, which would explain why seasons were harsher or milder across history. But what keeps the Earth from having a more extreme shift? The Moon. All celestial bodies have their own gravity, and they can affect each other. Moon’s gravity has a pull on the equatorial bulge (Earth’s widest part) and prevents it from being affected by other surrounding planets, while also keeping the axial tilt stable.

The different seasons are the first major consequence of the axial tilt. As the Earth orbits around the Sun, it remains tilted in the same direction, which means that, for half of the orbit, one pole is directly facing the Sun, while the other is directly away. For the next half of the orbit, the positions are reversed. The pole closer to the Sun experiences Summer, while the opposite pole goes through Winter (which means that yes, the Southern hemisphere celebrates Christmas during Summer).

When a compass signals North, what is it pointing towards? Spoiler: not the North Pole. The North Pole (also known as True North, or Geographic North) it is a fixed point in the Arctic Ocean intersected by the rotational axis. Maps and coordinates use this point as a reference for the North. A compass, however, points towards the North of the Earth’s magnetic field, which is constantly shifting. The difference between the two Norths is called declination, and is essential for navigation and map reading.

The Earth is a sphere, but most maps are flat. Something is not adding up, and it’s all the fault of a man called Gerardus Mercator, who, in the 16th century, mapped the Earth in a way that represented the meridians and parallels as straight lines. While this was excellent for navigation, it had its negatives: a size distortion. The farthest land masses are from the equator and closest to the poles, the most inflated in size they appear. For example, in the Mercator projection, Greenland appears close in size to the entire African continent, when in reality it is closer in size to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

We all know the difference between the Northern and the Southern hemispheres, but did you know the difference between the Eastern and Western ones? Unlike North and South (which are divided by the equator and experience opposite seasons), the Eastern and Western hemispheres are more of a cultural division, even though they are separated by the Prime meridian and antimeridian. The Eastern Hemisphere is commonly associated with "the Old World" (though it includes Australia), and the Western Hemisphere is "the New World".

Hemispheres split the world equally in size, but not in content. The Northern Hemisphere contains the majority of the Earth’s land mass (around 68%), while the Southern Hemisphere holds the majority of the water (around 80%). As the Northern side has more land, it also houses the majority of the world’s population, around 90%.

North and South experience opposite seasons, but what else is opposite? Storms and whirlpools spin depending on their location—clockwise in the South, counterclockwise in the North—, and the shape of the crescent moon is perceived inverted —a waxing crescent looks like a D from the North and a C from the South.

While bigger celestial objects, such as the Sun or Moon, are visible from any point on Earth, some can only be seen depending on your location. Constellations that are located closer to the Poles are only visible from that hemisphere, and have traditionally been used for navigation and orientation. In the Northern hemisphere, the main examples are Polaris (the north star), Ursa Major (a constellation that contains the Big Dipper), Ursa Minor, Cepheus, and Cassiopeia. For the Southern Hemisphere, the main examples are Crux (the Southern Cross), Centaurus, and Carina.

Most institutions plan their year around Summer, which means that in the Northern Hemisphere, the Academic year usually starts around September and ends in May or June of the following calendar year, while there’s a Winter break in time for Christmas and New Year. In the Southern Hemisphere, the calendar and academic years are matched: the academic year usually begins in March and ends mid-December, right before the Holidays, while Winter break usually falls in July.

Changing words

These sayings don't mean what they used to

Image: Chouaib Maiza

More often than not, we toss around old sayings without giving them a second thought. However, many of them once meant something entirely different than what we are trying to say. Over time, words drift, idioms evolve, and what started as a literal warning becomes a cultural cliche. Let's rewind the dictionary and see how these phrases came to be, and whether their meanings remained intact or not.

Image: Nathan Dumlao

Quoted as gospel by floor managers and entitled customers alike, the original phrase had quite a different meaning. Attributed to the business pioneer Harry Gordon Selfridge, some believe that the saying originally was The customer is always right, in matters of taste. That would translate to: don’t argue if a buyer prefers stripes to solids. It never meant the shopper can insult staff or ignore policy.

Image: Erik Mclean

Master of none, right? That's the phrase as we are used to hearing it, usually accompanied by an eye roll, implying mediocrity. However, the full phrase from the 1600s was jack of all trades, master of none, but oftentimes better than master of one. It praised versatility and curiosity, as opposed to obstinate single-mindedness. As time went by and society became ever more specialized, this phrase dropped the last bit and completely changed its meaning.

Image: Karthick Krishnakumar

Today, happy as a clam just means "content." But the full 19th-century expression was happy as a clam at high tide, which adds a whole new dimension to the phrase. Clams aren't happy all the time, just when the water is high and they are the safest and hardest to dig up. Over time, the survival context vanished, leaving only the joy.

Image: Liv Bruce

The message behind this saying seems to be as clear as day: family always comes first. However, some people sustain that the original phrase went in a completely opposite direction: The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. In the older version, chosen bonds (friendship, camaraderie) run deeper than mere kinship.

Image: Allen Y

In 15th-century England, a good broth was "without bones:" easy to swallow and free of unpleasant surprises. A soup with bones, on the other hand, was full of obstacles.

The meaning of what-you-see-is-what-you-get transparency stuck, and that's why to make no bones about something means to speak candidly about it, without hiding your opinion.

Image: Sebastian Fell

This phrase most likely comes from boxing, but some theories about its origin are much more macabre. Allegedly, this saying comes from the Victorian fear of being buried alive. Some coffins were fitted with bells connected to a string inside, so that anyone mistakenly entombed could ring for rescue. Even though safety coffins were indeed made during the Victorian era, there is no actual record of this phrase ever being used during that time.

Image: Jana Ohajdova

If you ever found this one confusing, it's because the phrase is missing a few key words that clarify its meaning. The original saying, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, made quite clear that the test of quality lies in experience, not appearance.

Image: Samet Erköseoğlu

This is another one of those that dropped their second half to change meanings entirely. Today, it reads as a cheery nod to shared inspiration, but the original quip went: Great minds think alike, though fools seldom differ. In its original sense, though intelligent people can often arrive at the same conclusions independently, unintelligent people tend to always agree without much thought.

Image: Tijana Drndarski

The common explanation for this phrase dates back to Ancient Greece. Back then, citizens cast their votes using colored beans: clear for yes, dark for no. If someone knocked the jar over before the official count, the results were exposed prematurely. Over the centuries, this quirk of ancient democracy morphed into a metaphor for blabbing or revealing secrets.

Image: engin akyurt

While there are many myths about the origin of this idiom, some of them quite violent, its origin is actually quite pragmatic. Back when precise instruments of measurement weren't as commonplace as they are today, various trades used the thumb's width (about an inch) to roughly measure materials informally