Seaman Northrup can't tell port from starboard - a podcast by Robert Thomas Northrup

Error in episode 7, "The Only Thing That Stops a Few Bad Apples." Mr. Freeman, the driver of the car, warns Officer Goodman that he has a revolver in a holster under his left armpit. Goodman tells Sgt. Abolysche it's allegedly under his "starboard" armpit. It sounded funny, but I remembered last night that it should be his port armpit. Port = left. The mnemonic my father taught me is: "I'm a star basketball player and I dribble with my right hand. Starboard is right." Then the only other choice for port is left.

It doesn't totally ruin the episode, because it could be interpreted as Officer Goodman confusing starboard and port, not me. Or maybe he's thinking of right and left, starboard and port from his perspective looking at Mr. Freeman, not from Mr. Freeman's perspective. No, it should be relative to the vehicle! So he definitely got it wrong.

And it really is linked to right-handedness. Before centered rudders, ships used steering oars. Since most people are right-handed, they'd use the steering oar on the right aft of the ship. "Starboard" derived from "steorboard." Then you don't want to get the steering oar caught between the ship and the dock, so the opposite side was where you'd come in to "port."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_and_starboard

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