Words for "left" and "right"

[MelantheLLC]

Ok, so I know about gee and haw.

This is actually not directly related to driving for me, but in prep for some fun and games, I’m going to teach my horse verbal cues for turning left and right at liberty. I can just use “left” and “right,” of course, but it occurred to me that drivers might have developed a terminology that works with prompt maneuvers that might follow one another in quick succession. I figured I might as well use something that’s traditional, if there is anything, but I draw the line at gee/haw.

(I’d love to teach him to drive but no resources at the moment for him or me. I’ve had lessons but they were years ago. I can’t remember if we used a verbal cue to turn.)

Anyway, is this a purely personal choice, regional, cultural, any advice?

[Zwarte]

What is wrong with gee and haw?

[MelantheLLC]

I don’t like the sound of them. Purely personal. Reminds me too much of The Grand 'Ole Opry.

[buck22]

In the grand scheme whatever you choose to use is pretty arbitrary, you could use snowflake and eggplant if you so wanted. Whats important is that it something that comes naturally to you and rolls off the lips without you having to think too hard about it.

Gee and Haw never felt natural to me, but “Come” (right) and “Get” (left) did, so thats what I went with.

Now in hindsight with driving being a real new discipline we’re focused on, I do regret the choice and wish I used Gee and Haw. Many moons ago when I was riding my driving horse I taught him “GIT!” as to get moving and get out of my space. When I tell him to Get now, he speeds up, which is usually fine by me anyhow I prefer to motor through a turn, but the verbal command for left really isn’t installed.

And, when I let a friend drive, she uses Come! as a motivator, for instance if we’re crossing something scary and he’s considering turning back, she’ll shout “COME! COME! COME!”. Poor little guy knows his right better than his left and he will get a bit confused in earnest.

Gee and Haw sound awkward to say if you’re not used to it, and its awkward for people to hear if they’re not used to it, so you do stick out like a sore thumb and feel silly using them… but they really are good verbals because they’re rarely - if ever - used around horses for any other purpose, so its universal.

Many moons ago my now retired grand old man used to be quite handy at pole bending, he is so short coupled and balanced and isn’t very fast but mighty quick. He’s a very forward horse, and though he knew the pattern really well, we did a lot of gaming and he knew his main job was to get us back to the finish line (usually orange cones) as fast as he possibly could.

When he’d be really revved up, if I let him step one hoof out of line while weaving the poles he’d spot those orange cones and get laser lock and just barrel towards them, no amount of pulling could bend his mighty neck and we’d go careening out of control :lol: I didn’t want to put more metal in his mouth (an I didn’t know enough at the time to learn to ride better), so I taught him “to the right!” “to the left!” and goodness it worked so well. Watchers thought us nuts, but I was able to use my voice good and loud and drown out his ability to think about much else but my instructions. We got even faster times as we were able to stay more balanced through the tight 2x changes because I wasn’t pulling him off balance with my hands ripping his face off :lol:

I had him out hand-walking today, and at age 32 he still wants to conquer the world :lol: we were walking the new trails I plan to drive this week and picking up sticks and stones. I let him get away with murder and jog ahead of me while we walk, it makes my heart so happy to see him so full of life and go go go still. When he gets ahead of me, and we need to make a sharp turn, he still remembers “to the right!” and will turn wherever I ask even though I’m being drug along like a dope on a rope (with a huge smile though).

[gothedistance]

@MelantheLLC;6229923

Ok, so I know about gee and haw.

This is actually not directly related to driving for me, but in prep for some fun and games, I’m going to teach my horse verbal cues for turning left and right at liberty. I can just use “left” and “right,” of course, but it occurred to me that drivers might have developed a terminology that works with prompt maneuvers that might follow one another in quick succession. I figured I might as well use something that’s traditional, if there is anything, but I draw the line at gee/haw.

(I’d love to teach him to drive but no resources at the moment for him or me. I’ve had lessons but they were years ago. I can’t remember if we used a verbal cue to turn.)

Anyway, is this a purely personal choice, regional, cultural, any advice?

Purely personal.

I also do NOT like gee and haw. I don’t care how “historic” they are. Unless I was driving a horse drawn commercial trade vehicle, or a plow horse, or a sled dog team - none of which I do - those two words have no place in my vocabulary list. They sound course and gutteral to my ear. Not a bit of poetry in them. Blech!

Why not use French, or another elegant language? Italian, Greek?

Or pretend you’re teaching your horse to herd a flock of sheep - in which case you’d use “Come (by)” and “Away (to me)” You must admit they roll quite nicely off the tongue…especially if you throw in a Scottish accent. :winkgrin:

[RMJacobs]

I started training my pony with port and starboard (had a couple of boats at the time). But somehow I stopped working on the turn commands with him, which is weird because I use verbal commands for everything else. If I go back to training turn commands, I’ll probably use left and right.

Rebecca

[Chewbacca]

I just use good ole’ “left” and “right”. I am fairly certain that my horse, Chewbacca, with whom I’ve used those commands since day 1, including while leading, has now come to learn English.

lol

I never could quite figure out how and why someone came up with gee and haw and those got “adopted” as common training? Just doesn’t sound right to me, and I couldn’t remember which was supposed to be which. I can usually remember left and right, although sometimes I need to hold my hand out and see which one makes an “L”.

[sk_pacer]

Another vote for Come and Get. Taught those to many horses over the years, damned handy when you have tie stalls or tie to a wall at a fair track - can tell the horse to come over or get over to go in and feed and water.

[China_Doll]

[QUOTE=Zwarte;6229934]
What is wrong with gee and haw?[/QUOTE]

They don’t make any sense and I can’t remember which is which

[lizathenag]

Chubby Checker

Pony Time (1961)

Now you turn to the left when I say gee,
You turn to the right when I say haw,
Now gee, ya ya little baby,
Now haw, ya oh baby, oh baby, pretty baby,
Do it baby, oh baby, oh baby,
Boogety, boogety, boogety, boogety shoo.

[lizathenag]

bored at work

Your question is timely, because we recently did some research on this topic for an individual (see our Rush Queries page for more information on individual research projects). The answer to your query goes back to early Modern English. As early as 1548 we have record of the term ree, which was a call to a horse to turn right. Ree is, in fact, simply a corruption of right. In 1599 we find this quotation: “Whipstaff in his hand, Who with a hey and ree the beasts command.” Hey or hayte was the word for “left” at the time, and it was eventually transformed into haw (mostly in the U.S., 19th century) or heck, so that the phrase neither heck nor ree arose, meaning “to go neither left nor right” or, metaphorically, “to be intractable or obstinate”. Hey was probably simply our word hey, an interjection used to get one’s (or in this case one’s horse’s) attention. You may be surprised to learn that the interjection hey dates in writing from about 1225 (when it was hei)!

Well, that is all well and good, but what about gee? We first find it in the written record about 1628: “He expostulates with his Oxen very vnderstandingly, and speaks Gee and Ree better then English” (from A Country Fellow, by Earle). Gee had arisen, with influence from ree, as a corrupted form of “go”. It eventually came to replace ree to mean “right”, but it also continued to retain its “go” meaning, as well.

We hear the term gee used in the city as well as the country today, in the form gee-gee, a hypochoristic (baby talk) term for a horse. Now that we have discussed the word gee, it is probably not difficult to see whence gee-gee came. The word used to direct a horse simply came to apply to the horse. Children in the early 19th century saw horses on a daily basis, in many cases. The youngest children, just learning to speak, would hear men shouting “Gee!” to their horses, and so they, very logically for children, applied that word to the animal. It became gee-gee after the pattern of other children’s words for animals, such as bow-wow for dog and kitty cat for cat, though it was still found as gee alone, as well. The earliest record of the gee-gee usage is 1869, and this one is from 1886: “To carry two heavy boys… on his back, pretending that he was a gee-gee.” It was certainly being used as early as the first part of the 19th century, however; it usually takes some time for slang or children’s words to find their way into written form.

So when a farmer calls haw and gee to his horses, he is etymologically saying hey and go!

from:
http://www.takeourword.com/TOW144/page2.html

[Equibrit]

Port and starboard.
Gauche et droite.
Democrat and Republican.
Hippy and banker.
Orthodox and southpaw.
Cack and clean.

[Drive_NJ]

Always just used Left and Right. People have enough issues keeping straight which is which of those without adding words you don’t commonly use.

[goodhors]

[QUOTE=Drive NJ;6234810]
Always just used Left and Right. People have enough issues keeping straight which is which of those without adding words you don’t commonly use.[/QUOTE]

Same thinking for us! Hard enough to tell right from left WITHOUT any excitement involved!!

So using words even I can’t keep straight or use consistantly CORRECTLY, is not a good idea in training our horses. Right and left are pretty good, as basic as WE can get it. As a groom/navigator, some times you have to tell the Driver “RIGHT. No, the OTHER RIGHT!!” No time for explaining stuff then.

[pAin_t_Misbehavin]

@lizathenag;6232002

Pony Time (1961)

Now you turn to the left when I say gee,
You turn to the right when I say haw,

[QUOTE=lizathenag;6232005] Hey or hayte was the word for “left” at the time, and it was eventually transformed into haw. . . .

Gee had arisen, with influence from ree, as a corrupted form of “go”. It eventually came to replace ree to mean “right”[.]
[/QUOTE]

Hmmm:confused:

So it is Chubby or the Word Origin folk who Don’t Know Gee from Haw?

[MelantheLLC]

So, left and right it is, for us!

Thanks for the overview. I like Come and Get, but I’ve already taught both my guys “come here” to target to my fist, and I’d rather not confuse them, since once or twice it’s turned one around before escapee was headed for the highway.

I actually think Left and Right have advantages–they mean something to humans, they are easy sounds to distinguish for horses, they aren’t too close to some other common cues, like Back, etc.

And goodhors, I know all about that Other Right!

[sk_pacer]

@MelantheLLC;6235014

I like Come and Get, but I’ve already taught both my guys “come here” to target to my fist, and I’d rather not confuse them, since once or twice it’s turned one around before escapee was headed for the highway

I haven’t found come on (what I use to call) to ever be confused with come over or come around. Farm horses used to distinguish many voice commands: come over, get over, back, get up and each of these combined with the word step with each repetition of step moving the horse one slow short step at a time and learned quickly that come on meand food, water or shelter and wasn’t ever confused with anything else. My guy also knows step up for loading.and step down for unloading. I have seen work horses also trained to come over step over and get over step over, each of which will get the horse over the pole - apparently a little tricky to teach.

[MelantheLLC]

Yeah, but I might get confuzzled.

[Daisydonk]

We have an RDA pony that does black and white for left and right. They are the colours of his ears. It makes life simple all round.

[DancingAppy]

I never liked ‘Gee’ and ‘Haw’ either. Can’t remember which is which.

Can’t do ‘Come’ and ‘Get’ because I use ‘Git’ as to mean pick up the pace.

I don’t really use left/right commands but if I do it’s “Migi” (right) and “Hidari” (left). It’s the words for left and right in Japanese but they are quick and easy to say. It’s easy to emphasize the ‘GEE’ in ‘Migi’ and the “DAA” in “hidari”.