A latitude-longitude pair is always expressed as e.g. "24 degrees 16 minutes north, 79 degrees 41 minutes west". ALWAYS North/South followed by East/West. So you just need to remember it's latitude-then-longitude, and thus latitude measures degrees north or south of the equator, and longitude measures degrees east or west of the prime meridian. That's how I learned it Back In The Day when I was a midshipman, and it's stuck with me ever since. (Back when shooting sun lines was an entertaining way to torture junior middies during a long afternoon watch in the mid-Pacific. Now, true sadists would have them up at oh-dark-thirty to compute a star fix... "Mr. Midshipman Jones, can you tell us our position? Is that so, sir? Mr. Midshipman Jones, please be advised that we are 3 degrees north of the equator - not three degrees north of the Arctic Circle as your calculations seem to indicate! Do it again, Mr. Jones - do it again..." Of course, I never did such a thing... :-).