Heh. It’s so nice to see I am not alone in this. My husband says I have a bad habit of saying ‘go left’ while pointing right. Up till now I have always attributed to my second grade teacher who told us that ‘this is the right side of the room, and that is the left side, but if you turn and face the opposite direction, that’s the right and this is the left’.
Half of the people in my office call me Spellcheck. 
I do. Why?
I am, and I also have directional dyslexia. I will be driving, Ivylad will tell me to turn left, and I will turn right. He likes to joke that if he spins me around twice in a mall, I won’t be able to find my way out.
For me, it can be a bit bewildering, because I think I know the way, but it turns out I’m going the wrong way. I don’t know how I got turned around, and I’m quite sure that the door was on the other side of the building when I came in, and they moved it.
That’s what I mean. I’m an excellent speller; I’m an avid reader, I excelled at writing essays, stories, poems and whatnot throughout school.
Apparently, this is common among people who are dyscalculic… it’s dyslexia with numbers. So I guess because your brain can’t comprehend arithmetic, sequences and numbers, your right brain takes over and goes into overdrive on the creative stuff.
Heh, we were just getting training in some new software today and the trainer mentioned that the little icon next to the note field would let you run spell-check on the note you wrote. And I said “Hah! I already know how to spell.”
I’m also a failure at left and right, and have to look at my hands to see which one makes an “L” every time. I will never forget when my college roommate clued me into that trick – I swear, it is the single most life-changing piece of information I learned in college.
Right-handed, and no problems at all with north, south, east and west. Well … that’s not quite true, I do have a little problem with east and west because I’ll have to think about whether or not east and west are always east and west, or if they switch around like left and right. But I firmly believe that’s another manifestation of the left/right problem, and not really an issue with east/west on their own. If left/right stayed in one place, it would have never occurred to me to worry about it with regard to east/west.
Stage left and stage right are never a problem either. And I know some people who are good at left and right, but need to pause to think about stage left and stage right.
To those of you who need to look at their hands to tell the difference between left and right, how do you know which side to look at - the palm or the back? Because if some tells me to look at my hands, I’ll generally look at the palms.
Gah. I’ve always had this problem. I too get tired of “Not that way, the OTHER left”. My SO and I have kind of solved that. If the passenger mean right, they rap on the window next to them.
Left handed, no problems with n/s/e/w, can’t spell, loves math. Oh, and I check for the large scar on my left hand ring finger.
I’ve been in marching band for seven years, so if I ever had a problem with left/right, it’s been beaten out of me. I do mix up east and west, though.
I’ve heard this happens with left-handed people, particularly those who when young were pressured to favor their right hands.
Question though: Wouldn’t it be effective just to remember from certain basic facts of driving? For instance, based on the side of the road you drive on in your country there are any number of cues to help. For instance, you could think of where the curb is in relation to your car after you parallel park it. Or, if you don’t drive, which side you exit the bus on and so forth. Or does the mind not make those associations, in this context?
It must, it did for me.
But when you lose those basic landmarks, well…all bets are off.
Cheers,
G
Me too! (Female, left-handed.) I always go and/or point the proper way, and have a good sense of direction for the most part, but I seem to reverse the words. My family all think I am some sort of freak.
(But you can take consolation in the fact that lefties are the only people in their right minds! 
)
Another one who can’t tell her left from her right without holding her hands out in front of her.
I’m also:
- Right handed (although there is a lot of left handedness in the family and I’m left-footed).
- A good speller (note to self - preview this post and proofread it meticulously).
- Crap at maths (Brit spelling).
I’m not as surprised as some here about how common it is, because several people I know have admitted to it when it’s come up in conversation.
Could it be true what someone once told me that this is the first test people who want to become pilots have to do? If you can’t tell your right from your left automatically, you’re out of the running?
:rolleyes:
My sister is left-handed. My mother actually had to go to school and tell the teacher not to force her to write with her right hand.
My husband was born left-handed, but his father, figuring life would be too hard for a southpaw, forced him to be right-handed.
My son is happily left-handed.
I’m a righty, btw, born and bred.
Slight Hijack…
I have a question about 'handedness" for lack of a better word.
I’m left handed when I write, shoot and eat, but right handed for everything else. I know it’s not truly abidextrous, but is there a term for it?
My google-fu is not so strong today.
Handedness is the correct word, I believe. Come to think of it, it’s possible to favor one hand for one or two certain things, but the other for everything else. Paul McCartney plays guitar and bass left handed, but for everything else he’s right handed. As a guitar player myself, I’ve never really understood why we hold the guitar the way we do. It seems to me that the more intricate work is done by the hand on the neck, yet we use the nonfavored hand for that.
In a matter not directly related to handedness, I remember being very young and using the Zenith TV logo to remember which way to write a “Z”. I realized that if the ‘z’ went the wrong way, it wouldn’t be possible for the bottom piece to be extended under the rest of the name.
You might want to read the book The Left Hander Syndrome by Stanley Coren. He writes about people being left eared and left footed.
As someone very bad at left vrs. right I love this thread. The only way I can tell the difference sometimes is to visualize a map of the United States in front of me. California is on the left so it makes sense.
Neither is my spelling-fu.
Ambidextrous.
sigh.
Very interesting point about the spelling and math - I am an excellent speller and avid, fast reader, and while I’m not absolute crap at math, it is definitely my weak area. Very interesting.