How can you have 6 quadrants?!

[jackstini]

Mind befuddled

Haha!

Although it technically means one of the four areas on a graph, it has just come to mean “area”. So a city could have 5 quadrants. A bit like “quarter”. You can have more than four quarters when it means area of a city.

Our hobby group's annual show used to have circular tables divided into quarters for each member's display. We tended to refer to the tables themselves as 'quadrants', and would have about five of them. I know what you mean though.

What gets me is 'Up To Half Price Off' offers in shops.

Not in Pedants’ Corner you can’t!

Is the use of ‘quarter’ for areas of a city related to the geometrical meaning or to the ‘living quarters’ one…I need to look up the etymology of that.

I suspect they both come from French quartiers!

Yes… and it seems the word has been going adrift for a while :
The word's connection with "four" loosened in Middle English and by 15c. expressions such as six-quartered for "six-sided" are found.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/quarter

I always wondered why my town has five quarters! I just assumed someone at town planning had failed maths gcse 😆

You can also have servants' quarters and you can be quartered - as in given accommodation - which seems to be unrelated to 1/4

I think quadrants really ought to come in fours though.

Well I may have learned something! Still twists my brain though…