To follow on from Dave and your orientation to the red question, it sort of does do that but there is slightly more to it.
SU has a global orientation set at the origin, meaning it sees things with the origin point at the bottom left of the screen. Therefore text generally follows that overall concept, it will attempt to orientate to the bottom left corner of the face you place it on.
As you can see below, the text follows that orientation even on a sphere, as it is following the actual facets of the sphere.
So as an example, if you try to place text on a chair leg, if it is standing up the text will natural orient across it, but if it is lying down it will follow the length.
[screenr:1m5a6ze2]XHcH[/screenr:1m5a6ze2]