I think everyone overlooks a very practical reason for left handed people twisting their hand when we write.
I clearly remember my first grade teacher helping me form my letters. She stood to the right of me and took my left hand in her right hand to guide me. She was the one who turned my hand and caused it to hook in the classic left handed way. Several years later I got tired of smearing my writing so I taught myself to un-hook my hand.
ETA: Link to Column --Rico
the use of a QWERTY keyboard was mentioned as being designed to favor the left handed in this article. The intent was not to help the left handed but to hinder the right handed ( the mass population) the whole idea behind what seems to be a backward inefficient keyboard design if for it to be just that! QWERTY’s purpose was to slow down typists because with the quicker designs people were constantly jamming up the keys (as anyone who has used an older non electric typewriter has experienced). instead of fixing the problem they made it harder to type so that consumers experienced less jams and believed that they had a superior product. additionally commonly consecutive letters were separated in order to achieve the same goal.
So, I’m right handed, but I hook my hand when I write. I’m really not sure why I do that. What’s that make me, other than weird?
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I’m a lefty but I’ve never twisted my hand to write. Either way, I don’t see how you can avoid smearing since either your arm your wrist or your hand passes over your freshly written text. I almost always have pen or pencil transfer on my hands.
When the PaperMate “Erasable” pens came out in the 80’s they were pretty much useless for lefties. You’d erase, smear, and smudge the whole page and have all the ink on one side of your hand.
I’m a lefty and I hook my hand, although not as much as I’ve seen in others. I don’t remember anyone holding my hand to teach me to write. The way I hold pencils and pens causes my hand to block my view of what I’m writing if I don’t hook it. I don’t know that that’s the cause of the hooking, though, since it just feels more natural at this point. Does anybody have any info about how much lefties hook when writing in a language that goes in a different direction, such as Hebrew?
Question, Where does this put me?
I write with my left hand, don’t think I tend to hook,with a little practice I can write fine with my right hand, however I have found that I can also write with my right hand in mirror writing ie backwards and joined at the same speed I do so forward with my left. gets worse. using 2 pens can write both together backwards or forwards or opposing with either hand at the same time. just to point out, I am writing the same thing with both hands. Also play sports with either hand, am a bit dyslexic. Guessing that most people can do these things if they ever tried.
Sounds like you are a true ambidextrious rather than either hand dominant.
Also, those abilities are rather unusual. Most people can’t do that.
I write “upside-down” (that’s what I’ve always called it) and my teachers were always trying to make me stop. I was told in an acting class by the professor (so there’s your cite, such as it is), that people who write “upside-down” are still using their left brains, not their right brains.
If that is even a real theory anymore.
Actually, I don’t hook my hand. I just turn the paper and write from the bottom, up rather than left to right.
Well, most people can write backwards with their off hand. Writing forward with both at once, though, is unusual.
Not a problem for this leftie. I’ve always written sideways. Maybe I should explain…
Take a normal piece of paper and put it on your desk. Now rotate it exactly ninety degrees clockwise. Then write on it using your left hand. You start at the top-right corner, write your first line down to the bottom-right corner, then go back up and write the second line left of the first line…
It’s always seemed natural to me. No hand cramps, no smearing the ink with your writing hand,
, no finishing sentences,
Sorry about that. I fell off my chair.
Chronos said:
Really? Got a cite for that? I find it hard to even hold a pen with my left hand. Trying to move it across the paper is ridiculous.
Clearly, people don’t fit into neat categories of hand hooking. I’m right-handed, but not overwhelmingly so, and tend to hook either hand when I write, left a bit more, though.