{"id":8327,"date":"2017-08-10T08:37:25","date_gmt":"2017-08-10T15:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/?p=8327"},"modified":"2026-03-19T13:52:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T20:52:41","slug":"worlds-funniest-compass-tates-compass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/worlds-funniest-compass-tates-compass\/","title":{"rendered":"World&#8217;s Funniest Compass &#8211; a Tates Compass"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-8329\" src=\"http:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Compass.jpg\" alt=\"Tates Compass\" \/>Ever heard of a\u00a0<strong>Tates Compass<\/strong> ?<\/p>\n<p>Originally alleged to work only in the Southern Hemisphere\u00a0as <strong>it points South<\/strong> instead of North &#8211; it inspired the saying &#8212;<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>&#8220;He who has a Tates is Lost.&#8221;<\/strong> (1)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Well I bought an imitation Tates compass online. Its a lovely Brass compass and apparently it even glows in the dark.<\/p>\n<p>The problem is not that is points South, the trouble is my new <b>compass rarely points even close to North &#8211; exactly as depicted in the advertising photograph included here !<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Since pointing North is the only thing a Compass has to do for its whole life\u00a0and since it only has one really simple moving part, one might think this\u00a0is a hard job to foul up.<\/p>\n<p>Apparently not.<\/p>\n<p>After using this compass in California and Alaska I have learned\u00a0that <strong>if a compass is made with a sticky bearing<\/strong> it can\u00a0point in nearly every other compass direction <em><strong>except\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>North.<\/p>\n<p>So next time you are looking for a &#8220;Tates Compass&#8221; \u00a0(imagine the pranks you could pull with your office&#8217;s pompous, snarky hikers) &#8211; you know where to get it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">#####<\/p>\n<p>1. Its a play on words with the aphorism &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/one_who_hesitates_is_lost\">He who hesitates is Lost<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Update: After I contacted Amazon, the company selling the Tates compass was apologetic and refunded my purchase price.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ever heard of a\u00a0Tates Compass ? Originally alleged to work only in the Southern Hemisphere\u00a0as it points South instead of North &#8211; it inspired the saying &#8212;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consumer-protection","category-humor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8327"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8698,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8327\/revisions\/8698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}