NOOKS AND CRANNIES apply as you wish:
Why is a 90 degree angle called a 'right' angle, why not 'left' or 'wrong'?
R Lashley, Reading, UK
Simon Blake: Because it is the correct angle required for many construction tasks - architecture etc.
- Simon Blake's answer sounds a bit like a guess. A right angle would be "wrong" for just as many tasks. Right, meaning "correct", and right, meaning "straight", do have the same root, but "right angle" derives from the second rather than the first. A right angle was described in ancient geometry as the meeting of two right, ie straight, lines, with regard to dimensional axes.
Michael Cullen, Dublin
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