North by Northwest

Points of the Compass ... is a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, but it is not a point of the compass.

In an interview with the American film director and historian Peter Bogdanovich, in 1963, Hitchcock explained: "It's a fantasy. The whole film is epitomized in the title – there is no such thing as north–by–northwest on the compass."

The correct answer to this question is "North northwest".

The word 'by' is only used in reference to the full 32–point compass (as shown in the diagram on the right, courtesy of Wikipedia). For example, midway between North northwest and North (348.75 degrees) is North by West; midway between North northwest and Northwest is Northwest by North.

After the word 'by' you can only have one of the four cardinal points: North, East, South or West.

Before the word 'by' you can have any one of the eight points including northeast, southeast, etc.

In the names of the 16 least significant points, the point before 'by' is the one of those eight points that it's nearest to, and the point after 'by' is the cardinal point on whose side of that point the point being described is.

For example: the two points either side of North are North by East and North by West.

This does sound terribly complicated, I know. Hopefully the diagram helps; for a full–size version, please click here.