Thanks to Darren, who sends this in saying “This one hurts my brain”.
“Is the fan on? I would hope for some blurring or sphericasia, but it looks like it’s not running. In which case, why move it?
The alternative is that the fan is running and someone thinks a cockerel weathervane points away from the wind….”
Comics I Don't Understand 
Side pun… Looks like a cocktail party.
I admit, I never knew the arrow points in the source direction. I would have thought the arrow would indicate the direction the wind is traveling. Doesn’t that make more sense?
Winds are named for their source, not their destination. So a weathervane should point East for an East wind.
As Darren seems to have guessed already, I think this comic was just a compositional brain spazz.
P.S. @ Powers (2) – It might be more logical in terms of the “arrow”, but for physical reasons it is easier to pinpoint the source direction. This is also true when holding up an extended (wet) finger: the chill on the windward side is much easier to feel than the comparative warmth all over the leeward side.
P.P.S. @ Lost (3) – It helps to have seen one of those vanes in action. Virtually every church steeple in Germany is topped by one, and most of them have a traditional rooster as decoration. According to Blazek’s website, he lives near Philadelphia, and graduated from Penn State. He might not have seen one on a church, but he must have seen plenty on all of those barns in Pennsylvania.
Yes, as in the famous Middle English quatrain “O Westron Wynde”
O Westron wynde when wyll thow blow
the smalle rayne downe can Rayne
Cryst yf my love were in my Armys
And I yn my bed Agayne.
(O Western Wind when wilt thou blow
And the small rain down doth rain
Christ that my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again!)
Actually, that doesn’t contain anything that says “winds are named for the direction of the source” really. Ah well, but it is still one of the great wind invocations.
Well now the block quote font size seems too small. Overcorrecting for the former huge setting. Will fiddle with it later.
The joke is perfectly understandable, the art just doesn’t support it.
Mitch @ 6: you confused me there! I thought the poem you quoted must have been in blockquotes, and I was concerned because I saw no difference at all; it took me a while to realize you meant the text in the post under the cartoon!
So for me, even in this artwork, it is clear the arrow must point to the source of the wind, and that the fan cannot be on: imagine it were on, all that air blowing upon the tail of the rooster would push the tail, causing the whole thing to swing around until the big draggy tail was on the opposite side, with the air blowing equally on either side of it such that it presents the thin edge to the wind.
Dvandom @7 & larK @9 leads to a very simple solution: correct the dialog to read, “Oh wait… turn the fan on.“
larK, sorry about that!
Now I have to anticipate further instances of people being misled after we change it up a bit, since the change gets applied to existing posts — and people will say “Doesn’t look like it needs changing” [hopefully]. I suppose the clearest thing will be to expunge this meta semi-thread.
Changed from Medium to Large — barely noticeable but that’s okay.
@ Mitch (12) – I disagree: it is definitely noticeable, and also a definite improvement, including in a few other locations that I was able to check on the fly.
@Kilby (4) Interesting that church steeples in Germany are topped with weather vanes; I assumed that crosses were the default object.
@ wkharrisjr (14) – There are churches with crosses, too, but in my experience the weather vanes (and roosters) are far more prevalent. I once heard that there is a difference between Catholic and Protestant churches, but this cannot be expected to be 100% uniform, since a large percentage of German Protestant churches were originally Catholic (when they were built).
P.S. In addition to weather vanes and/or crosses, another frequent (nearly universal) feature of German steeples are the so-called “tower balls”. Here’s a classic example:
The ball is of course hollow, and typically contains a few “time capsule” documents or items, dating from the construction or dedication of the tower.
These balls were originally a hedge related to a disagreement over a complicated argument in electromagnetic theory. One argument held that a lightning rod should have a sharp point, but a competing derivation (of the same equations) held that a round ball would be a more effective tip. Since the definitive answer had not yet been proven, the obvious solution was to include both features in the design, and this tradition was continued even after the correct answer was later demonstrated (sharp tipped lightning rods are better).
P.S. Since church towers do not move (or grow), the tower balls are used as reference points by surveyors, since they can often be seen from a long distance away.
In the UK we often called them weathercocks if there is poultry involved.
One of the most famous weather vanes in the UK is Old Father Time at Lord’s Cricket Ground (the home of cricket) in London, depicted removing the bails from the stumps at close of play or, alternatively, placing them at the start of day. Knocking the bails off the stumps with the ball is a main way of getting a batter out.
The only damage suffered at Lord’s during WW2 was to the weather vane, wrenched from its spot by a trailing cable from a drifting barrage balloon (those being large balloons with metal cables to discourage low-flying enemy aircraft).
https://www.lords.org/lords/our-history/father-time has pics and more info.
Once I found out the direction was where the wind was coming from, I always added, ‘Except for on shore and off shore’. Then my BIL, a mariner all his life, pointed out that it still holds if you’re on the water. Mystery solved!
Famously, the weathervane on top of Faneuil Hall in Boston is, of all things, a grasshopper!
https://www.boston.com/news/wickedpedia/2023/04/03/why-grasshopper-faneuil-hall-boston/
In case anyone has forgotten where that phrase comes from …
narmitaj: Thanks for that fascinating tidbit.
A late 1980s Jethro Tull song.
In the mediterranean sea the winds have names that tells the direction it comes from. Theese are not universal but in the west coast of Italy we have
Libeccio from Libya
Scirocco from Syria
Grecale from Greece
And probably some more…
G
As a weathervane fan*, I was appalled to see one in Vancouver B.C. with the NSEW markers reversed or, in map terms, inverted.
*I have had a weathervane at each of my three most recent residences over about a quarter of a century, not on the house but on a garage or shed where I can see it from the house. (Not the same weathervane, but the same design.)
@ gpuccioni – Wiktionary lists grecale, levante, libeccio, maestrale, ostro, scirocco, tramontana, and zefiro, but mentions a “country” in the etymology only for “grecale”, libeccio and scirocco are traced back to Arabic terms.
Scirocco (or sirocco) is a south wind isn’t it? Syria would be to the east.
@kilby Yes, there is also
levante: italian for “rising”, east
ponente : setting, west
libeccio: the wikipedia page say coming from Greek through Latin, and originally means “Libyan”.
ostro: same origin as austral, south from latin
scirocco from arabic šurūq related to the east (I don’t know if there is a relation to Syria or it’s just a coincidence)
@Brian it’s from south east, and I think the origin is from greek through latin….
I’d say that the fact that a wind name comes from the direction it comes from is quite common.
G