An office discussion of the ink-smeariness and wrist cramping suffered by left-handed people led to the question: Does the right-handed majority in countries that use typically right-to-left writing systems, like Hebrew and Arabic, suffer the same way lefties do here?
Lefties have different writing styles. I hold my hand and wrist straight, so they are below the line of writing. Maybe people who write from right to left do that.
I can assure you that left-handed Arabic writers ‘hook’ their hands just like writers do in left-to-right languages.
Why do you assume Lefties suffer?
Back in the days before ball point pens were introduced (ca. 1941), when fountain pens held fluid ink, being left-handed was a constant liability, with smeared writing and ink-stained hands and cuffs as the left hand moved over still wet ink. No wonder teachers tried to switch the writing orientation of lefties.
Even I remember how dirty the side of my left hand would get when we used those fat #3 pencils with the soft lead in the lower grades of school.
Correction: #1 lead pencils.
Using the hook-style method of holding your pen will cause smear even if you’re a righty, as the side of your hand will smudge the line above the one you are currently writing. And just in general, more of your hand is in contact with the paper, so if you’re drawing, there is a greater chance that you will get pencil clouds and such as your hand migrates carbon powder about the page.
I’m a non-hooker lefty. When I see the hooker lefties, it kind of makes me nervous. It doesn’t look very comfortable.
My lefty mother had a teacher who taught her to write all over again – it’s so obvious it probably never occurs to a lot of people, but she simply turns the paper the other way and writes like the rest of us righties.
My ex was a hooking leftie and it looked horribly uncomfortable to me.
I hook my hand, and I’m a rightie. It’s annoying, cause when I do right more than one line, sometimes it does smear.
As other hooking lefties can assure you, there is nothing uncomfortable about writing that way. Hookers move the pen using the knuckle joints of the fingers, while non-hookers move the pen using the wrist. The fist is more closed for hookers, but that is actually a more natural position than open — flexor muscles are needed to open the fist. Close your fist all the way. See, that’s not uncomfortable.