Postby janKipo » Thu Nov 24, 2016 1:43 pm
Yes, we are painfully aware of the issues you mention. tp was created and originally propagated by North Americans and much of that culture seeped in, even unintentionally. Once there started to be people from other regions (antipodeans especially for the North/South thing), criticism and attempts at corrections followed, but so far most of these have failed to gain headway against 15 years of entrenched usage. The left/right issue somehow missed being "settled" and so is the focus of most of the continuing discussion. It is relevant to at least the North/South issue, since East and West are pretty clearly settled (well, not the exact wording but the concept "where the sun rises/sets") and North and South are then just on the left and right sides once we decide which way to face (rising sun seems favored). I admit that there hasn't been a lot of discussion about 'tenpo seli' and 'tenpo lete', since we seem to be short on folks from tropical or Arctic areas and the Antipodeans seem to have just decided that there Summer comes in January -- and we tend to think that tropical countries just don't have Winters at all. That is, "winter" is a climatic description, not a calendric division, which may take another expression, if it has any actual significance.
I admit that 'poka open' is not clear on first hearing, but, like most idioms, it grows on you. And it has the advantage (let's suppose) of not denigrating anyone for a change, Note: 'luka wawa' is still a put-down to lefties. It also is about something universal in tp culture (a rarity), even in countries where the Latin script is not otherwise common (though hardly unfamiliar).