Purling backwards

[rhien.livejournal.com]

I was just watching a video at the Knitting Help website to help me figure out binding off in pattern, when I realized that I do my purl stitches backwards! Well, sort of. I know a purl stitch is essentially a knit stitch backwards; that is what my knitting book (Stitch N' Bitch) told me when I was teaching myself how to do it.

I took it very literally it seems, because when I'm throwing the yarn (I knit English method) in a purl stitch, I wrap it clockwise, because you throw the yarn counterclockwise in a knit stitch. Apparently that is the one part of a purl stitch that remains the same; the direction you throw the yarn. I was watching the video thinking something was off, and then I thought "She's doing it wrong!" and then I pull out my book and look it up, and find out that I've been throwing the yarn incorrectly the whole time! (Although I noticed in Stitch N' Bitch it tells you to bind off purlwise in the back leg of the stitch and in the video I was watching she took from the front leg of the stitch every time.)

And yet, my work doesn't appear to suffer for it. As far as I can tell it looks how it is supposed to. I'm wondering if I should re-teach myself to do it correctly, or if it would make a difference at all. Any opinions?