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Source: C++ For Dummies, 7th Edition by Stephen R. Davis (2014)

Example:

Return to our PC-screen-repaint problem. Surely it must need a loop structure of some type to write each pixel from left to right on a single line. (Do Middle Eastern terminals scan from right to left? I have no idea.) What about repeatedly repainting each scan line from top to bottom? (Do PC screens in Australia scan from bottom to top?) For this particular task, you need to include a left-to-right scan loop within the top-to-bottom scan loop.

I understand the joke about the Middle East because everybody knows that in Arabic they read from right to left. But what's that about computer screens in Australia that scan from bottom to top? What's the humour here?

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    Australia lies in the Antipodes and in terms of "absolute" direction what's down is (sort of) up and what's up is (sort of) down relative to directions in the northern hemisphere.
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Commented Jan 12, 2016 at 2:15
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    Because Australia is "The Land Down Under."
    – lurker
    Commented Jan 12, 2016 at 2:20
  • Recall Alice in Wonderland. "I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it'll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I think--'"
    – CowperKettle
    Commented Jan 12, 2016 at 5:01
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because this is a joke based on geography that could be made in many languages.
    – Nathan Tuggy
    Commented Jan 12, 2016 at 5:58
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    I'm voting to reopen because, although the issue here is geography and not English, the OP didn't realize that. In my opinion, quite reasonably. I think an answer of, "Actually this isn't a matter of English per se" does not make the question invalid if a reasonable person might think that it was an English question. It's often said here that the goal is to build a repository of questions and answers. If questions like this are disallowed, then someone in the future who also thinks it is about English would not find an answer.
    – Jay
    Commented Jan 12, 2016 at 18:13

1 Answer 1

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Australia is the only continent (other than Antarctica) completely in the Southern Hemisphere. Due to this, the seasons are inverted, so when, say, North Americans have summer, they have winter, vice versa.

The humour comes in: since Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere and most readers are in the Northern Hemisphere, the Australians are perceived as more geographically "upside down" compared to the readers.

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    Antarctica is also completely in the southern hemisphere.
    – Jay
    Commented Jan 12, 2016 at 14:19
  • It's not about the seasons but gravity. Put a model globe on your desk. You can see that people living in Europe and North America can walk easily about the surface of the Earth because they are pulled "down" onto it. But what about Australia? It's at the bottom of the globe so people should fall "down" off the surface. Australia was considered to be backwards/opposite of Europe for many years without rational thought entering into it. The joke is that it follows by this peculiar logic that computer screens must also run "backwards" from bottom to top.
    – CJ Dennis
    Commented Jan 22, 2016 at 7:00

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