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A 32-point compass rose

Boxing the compass is the action of naming all thirty-two clockwise points of the compass in order. Such names are formed by the initials of the cardinal directions and their intermediate ordinal directions, and are very handy to refer to a heading (or course or azimuth) in a general or colloquial fashion, without having to resort to computing or recalling degrees. For most applications, the minor points have been superseded by degrees measured clockwise from North.

Compass points[link]

Compass point names[link]

A 16-point compass rose

A 32-wind compass card, with English names

The names of the 32-wind compass rose follow these rules:

- The cardinal directions are North (N), East (E), South (S), West (W), at 90° angles on the compass rose.

- The ordinal directions are Northeast (NE), Southeast (SE), Southwest (SW) and Northwest (NW), formed by bisecting the angle of the cardinal winds. The name is merely a combination of the cardinals it bisects.

- The eight principal winds (or main winds) are the cardinals and ordinals considered thogether, that is N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW. Each principal wind is 45° from its neighbor. The principal winds form the basic eight-wind compass rose.

- The eight half-winds are the points obtained by bisecting the angles between the principal winds. The half-winds are North-northeast (NNE), East-northeast (ENE), East-southeast (ESE), South-southeast (SSE), South-southwest (SSW), West-southwest (WSW), West-northwest (WNW) and North-northwest (NNW). Notice that the name is constructed simply by combining the names of the principal winds to either side, with the cardinal wind coming first, the ordinal wind second. The eight principal winds and the eight half-winds together yield a 16-wind compass rose, with each compass point at a 22¹⁄₂° angle from the next.

- The sixteen quarter winds are the direction points obtained by bisecting the angles between the points on a 16-wind compass rose. The sixteen quarter-winds are North by east (NbE), Northeast by north (NEbN), Northeast by east (NEbE), East by north (EbN) in the first quadrant, East by south (EbS), Southeast by east (SEbE), Southeast by south (SEbS), South by east (SbE) in the second quadrant, South by west (SbW), Southwest by south (SWbS), Southwest by west (SWbW), West by south (WbS) in the third quadrant, and finally West by north (WbN), Northwest by west (NWbW), Northwest by north (NWbN) and North by west (NbW) in the fourth quadrant.

The eight principal winds, eight half-winds and sixteen quarter winds together yield a 32-wind compass rose, with each compass direction point at 11¹⁄₄° angle from the next.

The name of a quarter-wind is typically "X by Y", where X is a principal wind and Y is a cardinal wind. As a mnemonic device, it is useful to think of "X by Y" as a shortcut for the phrase "one quarter wind from X towards Y", where a "quarter" is 11¹⁄₄°, X is the nearest principal wind, and Y the next (more distant) cardinal wind. So "Northeast by east" means "one quarter from NE towards E", "Southwest by south" means "one quarter from SW towards S". The title of the famous Alfred Hitchcock 1959 movie, North by Northwest, is actually not a direction point on the 32-wind compass, as one quarter away from North towards the direction of Northwest is expressed as "North by west", and not "North by northwest". If the author of the film 'title' (suggested as the head of the story department at MGM), meant one point from Northwest towards North, the correct term would be "Northwest by North".

Traditional names[link]

The traditional compass rose of eight winds (and its 16-wind and 32-wind derivatives) was invented by seafarers in the Mediterranean Sea during the Middle Ages (the ancient Greco-Roman 12 Classical compass winds have little to do with them). The traditional mariner's wind names were expressed in Italian - or, more precisely, the Italianate Mediterranean lingua franca common among sailors in the 13th and 14th C., that was principally composed of Genoese (Ligurian), mixed with Venetian, Sicilian, Provençal, Catalan, Greek and Arabic terms from around the Mediterranean basin.

32-wind compass with traditional names (and traditional color code).

This Italianate patois was used to designate the names of the principal winds on the compass rose found in mariner compasses and portolan charts of the 14th and 15th C. The "traditional" names of the eight principal winds are:

• (N) - Tramontana
• (NE) - Greco (or Bora in some Venetian sources)
• (E) - Levante (sometimes Oriente)
• (SE) - Scirocco (or Exaloc in Catalan)
• (S) - Ostro (or Mezzogiorno in Venetian)
• (SW) - Libeccio (or Garbino, Eissalot in Provençal)
• (W) - Ponente (or Zephyrus in Greek)
• (NW) - Maestro (or Mistral in Provençal)

Local spelling variations are far more numerous than listed, e.g. Tramutana, Gregale, Grecho, Sirocco, Xaloc, Lebeg, Libezo, Leveche, Mezzodi, Migjorn, Magistro, Mestre, etc. Traditional compass roses will typically have the initials T, G, L, S, O, L, P, and M on the main points. Portolan charts also color-coded the compass winds: black for the eight principal winds, green for the eight half-winds and red for the sixteen quarter-winds.

In the English compass, all wind names are constructed on the basis of the cardinal four names (N, E, S, W). In the traditional compass, one needs to memorize eight basic names - one for each of the eight principal winds. While there are more names to memorize, the payoff is that the name construction rules for the 32-wind compass are more straightforward. The half-winds are just a combination of the two principal winds it bisects, with the shortest name usually coming first (e.g. NNE is "Greco-Tramontana", ENE is "Greco-Levante", SSE is "Ostro-Scirocco", etc.). The quarter winds are phrased "Quarto di X verso Y" (one quarter from X towards Y) or "X al Y" (X to Y) or "X per Y" (X by Y). There are no irregularities to trip over: the nearest principal wind always comes first, the more distant one second, e.g. North-by-east is "Quarto di Tramontana verso Greco", Northeast-by-north "Quarto di Greco verso Tramontana". The names are perfectly symmetric.

See also[link]

External links[link]

• Wind Rose (Archived) – discusses the origins of the names for compass directions.

Richard Marius Joseph Greene (25 August 1918 – 1 June 1985)^[1] was a noted English film and television actor. A matinee idol who appeared in more than 40 films, he was perhaps best known for the lead role in the long-running British TV series The Adventures of Robin Hood, which ran for 143 episodes from 1955 to 1960.

It has been stated elsewhere that he was the grandson of the inventor William Friese-Greene, who is credited by some as the inventor of cinematography, but Friese-Greene's genealogy shows no connection whatsoever to Richard Greene.

Early life[link]

Greene was a Roman Catholic of Irish and Scottish ancestry, and was born in Plymouth, Devon, England. His aunt was the musical theatre actress Evie Greene. His father, Richard Abraham Greene and his mother, Kathleen Gerrard, were both actors with the Plymouth Repertory Theatre.^[2] A descendant of four generations of actors, Greene was educated at the CVMS in Kensington, London, and left at age 18. He started his stage career as the proverbial spear carrier in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in 1933. A handsome young man, Greene added to his income by modelling shirts and hats.

Career[link]

Greene joined the Jevan Brandon Repertory Company in 1936. He won accolades in the same year for his part in Terence Rattigan's French Without Tears, which brought him to the attention of Alexander Korda and Darryl F. Zanuck. At 20, he joined 20th Century Fox as a rival to MGM's Robert Taylor. His first film for Fox was John Ford's Four Men and a Prayer. Greene was a huge success, especially with female film goers who sent him mountains of fan mail which at its peak rivalled that of Fox star Tyrone Power. One of his most notable roles was Sir Henry Baskerville in the 1939 Sherlock Holmes film The Hound of the Baskervilles. The film marked the first pairing of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

Greene interrupted his acting career to serve in World War II in the 27th Lancers, where he distinguished himself. After three months, he went to Sandhurst and was commissioned. He was promoted to Captain in the 27th Lancers in May 1944. He was relieved from duty in 1942 to appear in the British propaganda films Flying Fortress and Unpublished Story. In 1943, he appeared in The Yellow Canary while on furlough.^[3] He later toured in Shaw's Arms and the Man, entertaining the troops. Greene was discharged in December 1944 and appeared in the stage plays Desert Rats and I Capture the Castle.

However, the war effectively ruined Greene's rising career. Though he did well in the popular movie Forever Amber (1947), Greene found himself cast in a series of swashbuckling roles. Having turned away from films in favour of stage and screen and having been through a divorce from Patricia Medina, to whom he was married from 1941 to 1951, Greene was cash-strapped when Yeoman Films of Great Britain approached him for the lead role in The Adventures of Robin Hood.

Greene took the role and was an immediate success. It solved his financial problems and made him a star. He had a long love affair in the 1950s with Nancy Oakes, wealthy daughter of mining tycoon Sir Harry Oakes, who had been murdered in notorious circumstances in the Bahamas in 1943.

Amongst other TV programmes, Greene was in A Man For Loving, The Doctors, The Morecambe and Wise Show, Dixon of Dock Green, Scarf Jack, The Professionals episode Everest Was Also Conquered and the Tales of the Unexpected episode Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel's Coat.

Greene died of cardiac arrest in 1985.

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Richard Greene at the Internet Movie Database
• The Adventures of Robin Hood Appreciation Society
• Van Neste, Dan. ""Richard Greene, Swashbuckler With A Double-Edged Sword""[1].
• Fishko Files, WNYC, 25 June 2010.