Fred, you managed to make me dive for both my 3" thick US
dictionary(Websters) as well as my trusty Oxford built UK copy.
Both dictionaries agree..... Near is left and Off is right. Thought
for a moment I had been wrong since world-war one ,(where I served as
Pershing's advisor on Sunbeam vehicles.)
While I am NOT any sort of expert on word origins, I have an idea the
terms come from the fact that in the UK they always drove on the left
side and you were "near the curbing" while the other curb was "far
off" on the right side?????????
In the US, some early vehicles had RHD steering wheels right up into
the early teens, when LHD wheel positions became std.
Dick T.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Sep 05 2000 - 09:57:22 CDT