Languages without the letter U can't call it a U turn.

BarqsHasBite@lemmy.ca to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world – 141 points –
53

In Germany we have the letter U but we call it by the real name "Kehrtwende"

Just for context, the word Kehrtwende is not used often. Instead, the verb "wenden" is used the sense of "making a U-turn"

Why is kehrtwende the real name? Doesn't it basically just mean "turn around"?

Yes it does, why make it more complicated?

"U-turn" isn't more complicated, it's describing the motion literally: making a U-shaped turn

Isn't it more like a n-shaped turn?

It could also be seen as the intersection of 2 sets. But you can't call it an intersection, the name is taken.

2 more...

The Romans must have called it a V-turn

How is this not the top comment??

We call it a 180.

As in 180 degrees turn.

We call it something like 'half circle turn'.

Which language is that in?

You should see the the folks in Beijing make a 欲-turn.

In French it's called a pin turn.

I imagine that would be a hairpin which takes the shape of a U. In routing there is a hairpin NAT which redirects traffic exiting back into the local network.

Even though the letter U is definitely existing in the vocabulary, in Italian it is called "elbow turn" (curva a gomito)!

Italian.... “elbow turn”

I'd be willing to bet that when they say elbow they mean the pasta.

Thank you for making me discover elbow pasta! It deepens my conviction that everything in Italy is somehow related to pasta...

How do they not get it confused with elbow pasta?

Confusingly enough, in Italy I believe it is not quite a thing "elbow pasta". Personally I have never heard anyone refer to any kind of pasta as "gomiti", though Google showed me that they indeed exist. I have always heard the ones that looks like elbows in other names.

In Chinese doing an u-turn can be called 掉头 or 调头, literal translation would be lose head (or front) or change head (front). For whatever reason apparently both can be used.

You don't need an alphabet to design what may as well be modern day hieroglyphics.

The name U turn itself is dumb anyways (alongside shit like T-shirt, I kid you not I tought my english teacher was trolling us because I refused to believe at 12 that people in any part of the world use a '-' in a regular word they use everyday).