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When we say "the fly flew from the left to the right of his face", does that mean?:

1- the fly at first was flying in a space near 1 side of his face and then it flew to another space that was near to the other side of his face. In this case, the fly was not on his face whatsoever.

or

2- the fly at first was in an area on 1 side of his face and then it flew to and landed into another area on the other side of his face. In this case, the fly was actually on one side of his face.

Second, when you look at a person, how do you know that a thing is on the left or right of something.

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For example, when you look at the face a man like the above picture,

Is it correct for you to say "there is a mole on the left side/ the left of his face" or "there is a mole on the right side/ the right of his face"?

Also, suppose you look at a table like this

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In this case, is it correct for you to say "the child is standing on the left of the table" or "the child is standing on the right of the table"?

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  • "Left" and "right" are nearly always from the viewpoint of the speaker unless the speaker indicates otherwise (by a phrase like "on your left"). :However when you're talking about another person's face (or possibly their body), the "left side" probably means from their point of view rather than your own. It is potentially ambiguous though.
    – Colin Fine
    Commented Aug 14, 2023 at 10:16
  • To easily demonstrate that the "fly" example is ambiguous, just replace "fly" with "hummingbird". By default we assume the fly is walking around on one side of the face before flying across to the other side and landing, because that's what flies do. But because we know hummingbirds don't walk on people's faces, we assume the hummingbird swaps from flying near one side of the face to flying near the other side. The completely unrelated Left/Right issue has been asked before here and here.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Aug 14, 2023 at 10:42
  • Ambiguities aside, it would be more idiomatic to say "from the left side of his face" if the desired context is "the fly was walking on the left side of his face but then flew over to the right side" If the fly was buzzing around and not already on his face, it would be said to be "buzzing around to the left of his face" and then it could fly over and annoy him further by buzzing around to the right of his face.
    – TimR on some device
    Commented Aug 14, 2023 at 15:12

2 Answers 2

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If the fly didn't land on the person's face, it would be more natural to say

The fly flew past his face from left to right.

As for the child and the table, it depends whether the person you are speaking to is looking from the same viewpoint as you are. If they were at the other side of the table, you would have to specify 'my right'.

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The fly

This is ambiguous to me, but I would assume the fly flew past without landing.

A mole on somebody's face

In medical contexts, the right side of a person's body is always the side that they would see as their right, regardless of how you are seeing them. Sometimes this is called proper right and left.

In casual contexts, it may not always be clear, or a speaker/listener may flip the directions. (You'll sometimes hear the joking phrase "Your other left!" in these cases, meaning that the direction was flipped)

The table

The child is on the right of the table. I think this is unambiguous.

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