Today, I stumbled across this article about a study that links being left-handed to a slightly increased risk of breast cancer. There have been other studies that link using the sinister hand to being more accident prone or even a higher mortality rate.
Have any lefty Dopers found life more challenging, even hazardous? (This is a selfish enquiry. I was left handed but forced to switch in kindergarten. There doesn’t seem to be any research into how us switchers fair.)
I was a remarkably clumsy kid. I don’t know that it had anything to do with being left-handed, though. But yeah, there are a lot of things that are more challenging to me as a leftie, because I am so deeply lefthanded that I can’t translate a demonstration of something done right-handed to how it should be done left-handed – I just have to figure it out myself. I cut myself a lot learning to use kitchen knives.
Only right-handed people think us Lefties have problems. They are sadly mistaken. Rather interesting that of the three studies you cited, two are out of the Netherlands. Perhaps the problem is one of country of origin and not handiness? 
Whatever obstacles I may have in my life being a Lefty never amounted to much. Perhaps it comes from starting from birth (if not before) that Life would be full of challenges. Writing skills, door knobs, gear shifts, light switch placements, screw drivers, pencil sharpeners, school desk, telephones, scissors, calculators, computer mice, keyboards, cash registers, checkbooks, yadda, yadda, all have an anti-left bias. So what. I can mirror read and mirror write with ease, something a righty can’t do very well, if at all.
They say us Lefties might die sooner or suffer from certain illnesses at a higher level than righties. Then again, because the Lefty brain is wired differently (often with redundant brain centers and vastly increased nerve connections) than the righty brain, we recover much faster from such injuries. Even excel, too. Think Einstein. Think Cobb. Think Ford. (Well, two out of three anyway!)
Paraphrasing a study I read long ago, right-handers are a bunch of chocolate soldiers. Line them all up in a row and they are almost identical to each other. OTOH, Lefties are unique with every individual. I’m a third- if not fourth-generation Lefty. My wife is left-handed as is our three cats (left-pawed?). All the Lefties in the family live to ripe old ages, often in excess of 100 years. Can’t say the same for my right-handed relatives.
Doesn’t most of the planet and animal kingdoms have very strong left bias tendencies? Wouldn’t that mean human righties are really the odd ones out on a planet-wide scale?
So what’s another study decrying the greatness of being Left-handed? How gauche!
Given the opportunity to choose if I were so lucky, I’d rather be one of a kind than just another one in the crowd. As it is, I am blessed with the former.
Being a left-handed Red Indian was probably hazardous once upon a time…
It’s only natural to shoot one way off a horse when you’re galloping around the circled wagons, so the leftie would have had to ride around in the opposite direction.
I was recruited for the fencing team in college because the coach wanted a lefty for all his righties to practice against. The angle of the foil and of the target is totally different and that can throw an inexperienced rightie. I can imagine in days of yore being left handed was an advantage in swordplay.
I’ve never had a problem with watching something done right-handed and turning it around for myself. And I’ve certainly never had an instance were I felt being left-handed was a danger.
I’m ambidexterous and dyslexic.
I’m not dead yet, but I do fall down from time to time.
Left handed boxers, batters, and as I’ve now learned, fencers, are quite dangerous to their rightie opponents.
Other than that, nah.
Oh that’s just great. I thought all I had to put up with was smearing my ink and having to use the “special” scissors. Now I have to get breast cancer. Well we’ll get our revenge.We’re sinister after all.
From what I read of the studies, they’re just linking statistics without causation. People who own more than 2 TVs have a higher rate of heart disease than people with one or none, but few people go around claiming TVs cause heart disease… those articles make me angry because they’re so damn alarmist. “Here’s something to worry about with nothing you can do about it!”
I do 90% of things with my left hand. The ones not TMI that are done exclusively with my right hand are just using the mouse on computers and oddly, I’m better at bowling and throwing a frisbee with my right. Other than that, though, I can make my right hand do some things, if I have to - though with what seems to be greater ease than the typical right-handed person shifting hands. And I am a fairly clumsy person. But the worst I’ve ever injured myself is a broken middle toe and some stitches for a deep cut at the base of my right thumb.
For contrast, in the past four months one of my right-handed friends managed to fracture a hip (he’s 30!) and his elbow. In separate incidents. My brother is a rightie too, and he’s broken both arms, both wrists (one of them twice) and a bone in his heel.
I’m not the one I’m worried will end up with a broken neck, next. Okay, it’s possible that I’ve had better luck because knowing full well that using things made for righties is often more dangerous for lefties forces me to think about what I’m doing with things like power tools, but knowing your limitations is pretty good for keeping you safe.
I found this about lefties, just today. Language has always been my strong point, even if it’s not apparent here. 
http://people.howstuffworks.com/left-handed.htm
I’m not exactly a lefty: write left*, bat and throw right handed. Some things I do with either hand: computer mouse, hammer a nail…
*In grade school I was at the chalk board writing something when I heard the class behind me let out a collective gasp. I looked around puzzled. The teacher asked me to look at which hand the chalk was in–my right. I had switched hands in mid-sentence. My handwriting, still pretty good by most accounts, did not suffer.
Go figure.
Myself
That is an excellent point although it isn’t much of a problem for young “Throws Spear Funny” if he has enough sense to start his circle outside of the other ring and shoot in between his tribesman as they ride by. As a matter of fact, this can be beautiful (and very intimidating) if a tribe has several lefties. The wagon train circles in the middle, one group of Indians rides a perfect ring around it in the middle and the opposite handed group rides in formation circling the other way. It is breathtaking especially if viewed from the air.
I have read that 10 percent of the population is gay. Also that 10 % is left handed. A coincidence, I think not. So it is dangerous to be lefty. Aids could get you.
DAMN MEASURING CUPS!
Ok, got that out of the way. I am not a very coordinated person (looks down at broken toe) and tend to bruise easy and often. I’m not sure if it is because I’m a lefty or because I’m a dork. I tend to lean towards dork.
I think the hazard of being lefty is more for mechanical hobbies/professions. I bought a table saw and it is very awkward for me to reach the controls. Chainsaws, blow dryers, all sorts of things have very right sided tendencies and the switching them around can introduce a pretty real sense of peril.
My first car was a Peugeot and the controls were backwards from american cars, the turn signal was on the right, the ignition on the left. That car was so EASY to drive (unfortunately, it was towed more than driven) but to this day (20 years later) I still try to work the controls the “backwards” way.
You really don’t realize how many things are made awkward for lefties until you are a lefty.
Things in my house with a decidedly right bias.
-Scissors
-Can Opener
-Computer Monitor
-Keyboard
-Table Saw
-Chainsaw
-Drill press
-Blow dryer
-doors
-Most fridges
-Washer & Dryer
-Most car controls
-Alarm clocks
I am a poker dealer and players always notice I’m left handed. It doesn’t interfere with my ability to do my job, but it does change some aspects. When I spread my deck (fan it across the table) it is upside down from righties. When I do a flop, the window card is revealed to the folks on the right side of the table first, rather than the left. I have to concentrate to pull chips from the outside of the well on the right side. Interestingly, the muck is always on the dealers left side, which is typically the hand the deck is in, so mucking the cards without turning the deck is much easier for a rightie since the hand holding the deck doesn’t have to traverse the entire table. I have to make a point of not flipping the deck as I muck cards.
One supervisor told me I was going to have to learn to spread my deck with my right hand. I told her I would as soon as she was able to spread it with her left. She informed me there was no way she would be able to spread it with her left hand. I said “ditto.” She’s never bugged me about it since.
I just can’t fathom why right handed people tend to assume that lefties have to be able to switch at a moments notice, but can readily acknowledge that their left hand is essentially dead to them.
My daughter is looking like she’s a righty. I have no idea how I’m gonna teach her a damn thing. Has any lefty parents tied their childs RIGHT hand behind their back? I’m thinking I might be the first…
The British Army’s rifle L85A2/SA80 is a bullpup rifle and cannot be fired from the left shoulder as you’d probably get blinded by the hot brass ejected.
How are they defining left handed in these studies, anyway? I write with my left hand, yet do almost everything else with my right. Weirdly, I bowl a cricket ball in my left, but throw overarm with my right.
I’m left handed for basically everything except using a computer mouse, and I have the distinction of having never broken a single bone in my body
I could say that until a couple of weeks ago. Then I break my toe. No sympathy, no cast to sign, no crutches. NADA! It’s the most boring thing to break.
I don’t know if I should start a new thread or bring it here, but…as it’s been touced upone, can I ask people how handed you are?
I am abought as sinister as you can get. Left handed, left eyed (I’m a photographer so I know), left footed (from when thet made me play kick ball…thank god that will never happen again), left eared (I can’t put the phone to my right ear without getting confused).
On the other hand (ahem) I bat right handed, I play bass right handed and I mouse right handed.
How sided are you, and what do you do that’s inconsistent?
And what does this say about our brains?
Sorry, I guess this is a hijack, but it does go with the theme.
My father is left-handed and very intelligent but was also extremely accident-prone as a child. My grandfather loves to tell the story of how he spilled his drink in the same place every day for a consecutive number of years.
I am left-handed for many things, but was forced to learn to write and handle my food like a right-handed person. I learned knitting by looking at other people knitting, facing them, so I knit left-handed.
I listen to the phone with my right ear only, but I notice that my husband and right-handed people I’ve seen around use their left ear to answer the phone. My right eye is also my dominant eye.
When my son was born and I first picked him up to hold him, my doctor exclaimed that he hadn’t known that I was left-handed.