I do almost everything right handed. But my mother insisted that I started off left handed but switched myself over at about four, because I’d heard somehow that they made you be right handed in school. She said that she told me that wasn’t so and that it was fine to be left handed, but I insisted.
When I actually got to school (1950’s) I don’t think they were trying to switch anybody over.
I don’t think I could have made myself switch if I hadn’t been sort of ambidextrous. And I suppose maybe my mother was wrong, but there is a bit of evidence, in that if I try to do something I’ve never done before I sometimes start off trying to do it left handed; and I can generally do things left handed if I try, though as my left hand is generally less trained than my right I may not do them as well. I can write with my left hand, but the result looks like the writing of a young child. I cut the fingernails on my right hand with my left hand, no problem; just turning the scissors on my swiss army knife over.
I am a klutz; but I don’t know whether that’s further evidence, or whether I’d be klutzy anyway. I can’t remember whether I was clumsy for my age before I switched hands (if I did switch hands, I don’t remember doing it; but I have only sketchy and spotty memories of being that young.)
When I was in kindergarten (1966) they thought I was a duh because I couldn’t cut paper with a scissors worth a shit. They sent paper home with lines on for me practice on with my parents.
My Pop said “I know the problem. You’re left handed”.
The school said “we can cure him of that.”
The hell you can Pop said. And insisted they supply left handed scissors.
Turns out about 4 other kids in the class weren’t duh either, they were just left handed.
But my Pop was the only parent to stand up to the school and insist they do the right thing.
That pretty much describes me. I’m strongly right-hand dominant, but said right hand was out of commission (tendonitis) when I first got a mouse. So I learned it lefty. To this day I’m still slightly better with my left.
A couple other small tasks work better with my left - both when the hand is out of my sight. One is a behind-the-back toss when juggling. I hardly juggle anymore, but even when I was fairly proficient, I could not get the right hand to do that.
And tying certain boots with speed hooks. The left hand instantly gets the lace under the bottom far hook, which I can’t see, via tactile sense and proprioception. The right hand - just - can - NOT - get - it ! Why?! It takes me three times as long to get the right boot on, and no matter how I practice, it never improves.
I haven’t answered the poll above (at least not yet) but I’m primarily left-handed. There are things I do right-handed, especially play the guitar and mandolin, and use a computer mouse. If I played a violin, it would also be right-handed.
The musical instrument thing happened as an adult when I picked up the guitar and found that I absolutely cannot play left-handed. Even air-guitar just feels weird. I had piano lessons from about 5th grade through high school and of course never gave handedness a thought there. But the guitar thing came as a surprise. (My own unscientific research has convinced me that I am not unusual there, as I think most guitar-playing lefties play right-handed but I’m not sure why.)
Computer mouse in the right hand is simply because I made a decision to do it that way. It feels weird to me if I try to use my left hand now.
A couple of other comments: I eat left-handed but CAN use a fork in my right without putting out an eye. But it’s not a natural feeling there.
I’m 74 years old and was in school with some absolutely terrifying nuns, some of which should never have been teachers. But none of them ever even suggested that I change hands. I do remember adults at that time telling me that “in the old days” teachers/nuns would force one to change. So I’ve been surprised over the years to learn that some of that still went on with my contemporaries.
I mostly use my mouse with my left hand. I decided to attempt to play Minecraft right-handed, because otherwise i would have had to rebind all the keys on the keyboard, and also, i was trying to generally “learn to play video games”, many of which don’t support lefty mouse usage.
I’m much better at mousing righty than i was, but I’m still very clumsy in Minecraft because of this choice.
I didn’t vote since none of the options really apply. I’m primarily right-handed, but I bat and golf left-handed, but that isn’t enough to call myself ambidextrous.
My father was left handed but was forced to write right-handed as a kid in the 1920s, so I know where I got it from.
I saw Venditte, the “amphibious” pitcher in @kenobi_65 ‘s news article, when he was in the low minors. Unfortunately he faced just three hitters, all righties, so I never got to see him pitch from the left side. Too bad it was a 1-2-3 inning; the next batter in the lineup, had there been one, hit left.
My grandson is a lefty for everything except throwing a baseball. I taught a kid once who had that combination as well, and one of my friends growing up was in the same metaphorical boat.
As for me, I do everything right-handed except playing mumblety-peg, which I haven’t done for decades. I did forehand, backhand, fists, and cowhorns with my left hand. Everything else was righty even in that game, but for some unknown reason I used my left hand for those four. Go figure.
I am the only leftie in a family of righties. There are some things that I do with my right hand such as chopping meat and veg when cooking - I hold the knife in my right hand and hold what I’m chopping with my left as that just feels more stable. Conversely, I hold a veg peeler in my left hand and the item to peel is in my right.
To be honest I opened it wondering what a political thread was doing here.
I am right handed, but I usually eat burgers and pizza etc with my left hand… because my right hand (to my shame) is usually operating a cellphone. In fact this is the scenario in which I am making this very post.
I’m pretty sure it was in one of those Twilight Zone episodes that featured a burned-out businessman longing for a simpler time. Other than that, I got nothin’.
This is me. I do so many things right-handed that, as an adult, I started to doubt I was actually left-handed. I figured as a lefty I had just adapted to a right-handed world, then I read about mixed dominance and realized “that’s me!”
My parents, siblings, and two of my kids are right-handed. My third kid is mixed-dominance in reverse of me. This makes me think that it is inherited, but subtle enough to go unnoticed.
I don’t know what I am. I’ve always written with my right hand, but done almost everything involving two hands the left-handed way, be it hockey or archery or masturbation or playing the bass.
In my twenties I had eye surgery and my right eye ended up with much sharper vision than my left eye (nothing done to that one). After that, I had to switch to shooting bows, guns and whatnot right-handed, to get my new aiming eye aligned. It was a slog and a major adjustment, but I got there.
General global population is about 10% left handed. Looks like the Dope, along with POTUS’s skew more left handedness.
Predominantly left-handed (writing, cutting, eating, fishing, etc.) Golf and baseball, right handed. 1st grade teacher attempted to correct my writing. My mother asked her not to, as my Dad was left handed.