# Do all lefties have bad penmanship?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-lefties-have-bad-penmanship/371152>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [September 2, 2006, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-lefties-have-bad-penmanship/371152 "2006-09-02T02:50:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 12\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Southpaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@Southpaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Southpaw)\
**Post date:** [September 3, 2006, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-lefties-have-bad-penmanship/371152/41 "2006-09-03T15:57:34Z")

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> [@What Exit?](#):
>
> 1. Complete lack of left handed pens. 😉

Actually there are [left-handed pens](http://www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk/acatalog/writing_equipment.html)

My hand writing is, while not always the neatest, at least legible. I also don’t hook (and think it looks uncomfortable). Fortunately I had teachers that weren’t concerned about penminship provided they could read what was written. Still my handwriting was better then many righties.

Have any of you other lefties have trouble learning to tie your shoes? I never had problems (but my father is a southpaw too, so that might have something to do with it). My friend’s brother still can’t tie his and he’s almost 50. For some reason no one in his family thought to have him sit across from them and learn by mirroring them (or getting a lefty to teach him).

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**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\
**Post date:** [September 3, 2006, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-lefties-have-bad-penmanship/371152/42 "2006-09-03T16:52:45Z")

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> [@Southpaw](#):
>
> Actually there are [left-handed pens](http://www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk/acatalog/writing_equipment.html)

🙂

> [@](#):
>
> Have any of you other lefties have trouble learning to tie your shoes? I never had problems (but my father is a southpaw too, so that might have something to do with it). My friend’s brother still can’t tie his and he’s almost 50. For some reason no one in his family thought to have him sit across from them and learn by mirroring them (or getting a lefty to teach him).

No trouble tying shoes or any other knots. In fact I mastered a superior shoe tying almost twenty years ago called the sailors knot.

All it is, is an extra loop around the first half of the bow and this acts to greatly secure the hitch and yet lets it remain a slip knot.

Jim

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**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\
**Post date:** [September 3, 2006, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-lefties-have-bad-penmanship/371152/43 "2006-09-03T18:06:12Z")

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I have appalling handwriting, and am a righty.

My husband was a lefty, was forced to write with his right hand, and now can’t really write worth a damn with either.

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**Author:** ![Martha\_Medea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@Martha\_Medea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martha_Medea)\
**Post date:** [September 3, 2006, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-lefties-have-bad-penmanship/371152/44 "2006-09-03T18:15:05Z")

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> [@Antigen](#):
>
> I think it has less to do with lefty vs righty and more to do with the gender of the person writing. I think I’ve known maybe 5 guys in my whole life whose penmanship could be described with an adjective nicer than “legible”.

Dad is left-handed, male (duh!) and a doctor and lives up to the stereotypes.  
Sister is left-handed, female :rolleyes: and not a doctor. She, in contrast, has normal, fairly nice handwriting.

I also think it is also more to do with gender than anything else, and whether you are a doctor or not.

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**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\
**Post date:** [September 3, 2006, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-lefties-have-bad-penmanship/371152/45 "2006-09-03T19:32:41Z")

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[hijack]

What annoys me is when righties try to tell me that doing things right-handed is better for lefties. Two quick examples are playing the guitar and golfing. Righties seem to get outrageously indignant when you turn the tables _for a good reason_. Example: when a golf ball lies where one can’t get a good right-handed swing. When I’m in the mirror situation, I just grab a right-handed club and let 'er rip, it’s not like it’s that much harder than swinging left-handed. But when I offer a left-handed club, they act like I’m asking them to denounce their religions. Weird.

The big exception is the right-handed desk in school, which is better for me, a leftie. Because I have the typical left-handed writing technique, I’m operating on the right side of my body anyway, so sticking me with a left-handed desk isn’t going to be doing me, or most lefties, any good. One time some right-handed guy insisted I trade with him, and he was seriously pissed when I refused.

[/hijack]

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**Author:** ![PastAllReason](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f07891/32.png) [@PastAllReason](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastAllReason)\
**Post date:** [September 3, 2006, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-lefties-have-bad-penmanship/371152/46 "2006-09-03T23:53:31Z")

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I’m left-handed, and my writing is just fine. I do not use a “hook”. I do buy pens to avoid the smeaing problem. I gave up using pencils in high school because of the smearing that would ensue, not so much on the paper but on the side of my hand. The fact that I did algebra in pen (along with physics, etc., etc.) was an annoyance to the teacher, but hey, it worked for me.

FWIW, I’m not at all what one would call “deeply” left-handed. There are many things I do ambidextrously, and a few things for which I have a right-handed preference. So no, no issue tying shoes.

Oh, and **Quartz** you don’t need to learn Arabic. You can just write backwards in English. I find it quite easy, and it’s not a bad “party trick” every once in a while at a boring meeting.

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**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2006, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-lefties-have-bad-penmanship/371152/47 "2006-09-04T06:05:23Z")

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I am left handed, and have good handwriting. I am a “hooker”, which despite what others may think about how it looks, is quite natural to those who use it, and not painful. I remember my teacher showing me how left handed people should position the paper, and write with a backward slant to the letters. After giving that a stab, I said to hell with that, and worked out my own best way. My paper is positioned the same way as most right-handed people place it, and my letters slant forward.

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**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2006, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-lefties-have-bad-penmanship/371152/48 "2006-09-05T03:45:26Z")

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Nope. I’ve got very good writing. I even do calligraphy from time to time. I hook more when I write with wet ink, but my hook is very slight when I write with a pen or pencil. Cheap pens with oil-based ink smear, so no Bic Stics for me. I buy fine point gel or water-based ink pens and I use mechanical pencils almost exclusively. Standard pencils smear more.

My writing when I was a kid sucked, but that was due to two things: 1) I was still figuring out the best ways to do things and my coordination was still developing, and 2) I tried to write too small; you almost needed a magnifying glass to see some of my writing. About 5 or 6 grade, my handwriting improved dramatically.

I experimented with mirror writing. In fact, I wrote the poem Jabberwocky in calligraphic Old English script mirror writing as a present for a girlfriend who loved that poem. The only problem I had was the one you always have with calligraphy. If you screw up, you’ve got to start all over again because ink is permanent and any mistake shows.

I’m basically ambidexterous except for a few fine-motor tasks. I can use either left- or right-handed sissors, for example. I throw things more accurately with my left, more strongly with my right. My fiancee told me that it’s funny to watch me shave or brush my teeth because I switch hands when I get to a place that’s awkward to reach with the other hand.

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**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2006, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-lefties-have-bad-penmanship/371152/49 "2006-09-05T09:29:29Z")

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I’m a lefty-forced-into-righty. My penmanship was deemed unacceptable when I was a child although, funnily enough, it would have been ok if I’d been a boy; girls were taught a kind of caligraphy where the sticks go vertical while boys were taught one where they’re sloped forward; the biggest problem with my handwriting was its forward slope 😛

For some reason it got completely screwed during college. I can pinpoint when did it happen: one of my teachers used to different “s”; somehow that’s the class when my handwriting got screwed.

When I’m taking notes about something that I find both very complex and very interesting, all of a sudden my handwriting becomes size=1 but very clear and regular.

My rightie cousin once broke her wrist, so for a while she had to write with her left. She got back one essay with a teacher’s note saying “could you please write left-handed all the rest of the year? Beautiful handwriting!”

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**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2006, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-lefties-have-bad-penmanship/371152/50 "2006-09-05T09:32:03Z")

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[QUOTE=Walloon]  
I am left handed, and have good handwriting. I am a “hooker”, which despite what others may think about how it looks, is quite natural to those who use it, and not painful. I remember my teacher showing me how left handed people should position the paper, and write with a backward slant to the letters. After giving that a stab, I said to hell with that, and worked out my own best way. My paper is positioned the same way as most right-handed people place it, and my letters slant forward.  
[/QUOTE]

EEERK! Your teacher’s advice would be a problem when handwriting is analyzed for a job. IANAG, but from what I’ve been told repeatedly, a backward slope is understood as “no initiative” or “very reserved” and in general “not a good thing”.

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**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2006, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-lefties-have-bad-penmanship/371152/51 "2006-09-05T17:26:19Z")

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My husband ( **Typo Knig** ) and father-in-law are both lefties.

They have the worst handwriting of anyone I’ve ever seen in anyone who didn’t go to medical school. Their handwriting is worse even than most doctors’ (and I know that’s an insulting generalization but I have seem some truly horrific doctor handwriting).

Of course, my son is probably a righty (motor issues due to autism, his handedness was much in the air until he was 6 or so and even then we “chose” righthanded sort of by default) and his handwriting is hideous. So it may simply be a familial neurological issue at play in all 3 generations.

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**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2006, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-lefties-have-bad-penmanship/371152/52 "2006-09-05T17:59:18Z")

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I’m a lefty (for writing–I do almost everything else right-handed). My penmanship, when I concentrate on it, is very good, but ever since I started typing/keyboarding back in the '80s and stopped writing by hand unless it’s absolutely necessary, it’s gotten much worse. Has nothing to do with being a lefty. I can still write (cursive and printing) very nicely when I put my mind to it.

That “lefty hook” looks painful to me. I always got around the smear problem by leaning on the lower part of my hand, leaving the upper part (the part holding the pen) free to write while the only section in contact with the paper is moving over part of it where there’s no writing yet. Presto–no smears! When I was a kid, I thought all lefties did it that way.

BTW, speaking of lefties–do any of the rest of you get annoyed and have to bite back a snarky comment when you go to sign a check or whatever and the person behind the counter says brightly, “Oh! Are you left handed?”

“No–my right hand’s tired, so I’m giving it a break.”

::sigh:: :rolleyes:

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