Lefties are typically only about 10% of the general population, but I had speculated in that other post that since there are a number of famous lefties throughout history who have excelled in various fields, and Dopers are an extremely smart and capable bunch, perhaps the Venn diagram intersect of Dopers / lefties may be higher than 10%. And after almost no lefties representing in the first dozen or so posts, a strong lefty contingent eventually started showing up.
As for the poll rules, it’s a pretty straightforward poll. Left vs. right hand dominance should be clear-cut, but as for ambidextrousness, “I write left-handed but use scissors right-handed” isn’t ambidextrous, it’s just a lefty who adapted to a righty world. Let’s say for the purposes of this poll that if you can write equally legibly with both hands you qualify as ambidextrous.
I wish the poll had asked about more than just handedness. I believe people have a dominant eye, ear, and leg as well. I’m right-handed and right-eyed; I’m not sure how to determine ear dominance but I think in some science experiment in middle school I discovered I was right-eared as well. But I’m left-footed.
The “right” in that expression doesn’t refer to bilateral preference, it refers to wellness or correctness, thus implying that lefties are somwhow inferior. Stop being such a rightist!
Well, I wanted to keep the poll nice and tightly focused, but posters are free to discuss their other-dominance as well, either in this thread or in the other, in which many already have discussed eye, foot, etc. dominance.
I’m not ambidextrous (clearly a rightie), but I’m highly functional with my left hand, and prefer it for a few things. So right-handed, but more towards the middle of the continuum, though not far enough to check ambidextrous. But it’s hard to poll a continuum.
I am a southpaw when it comes to writing and a small number of manual tasks. For example, I will use a tin-opener with my left hand but I chop veg with the knife in my right hand.
Like many lefties, I have adapted to a rightie world. One thing that still catches me out is the railway station’s automated ticket barriers, I keep trying to put my ticket through the wrong barrier because I carry it in my left hand.
Right-handed, though my left eye is my dominant eye, so there are certain things at which I’m significantly better left-handed, such as shooting a rifle and hitting a softball.
I’m right handed but left eye dominant. That’s not usual for a righty, but it’s not rare. About 70% of the population is right eye dominant, the rest are lefties that way.
I am a natural lefty for most things, and an adapted righty for a number of other things. I can use scissors with either hand – right handed scissors. I can’t use left-handed scissors anymore because I am used to squeezing the scissors to make the blades meet as I cut left-handed, and if I do that with lefty scissors, it makes the blades separate.
I do archery right-handed because I’m right eyed. I think I’m also right footed, but not strongly so – I can kick pretty well with my left, too.
I play tennis and I bat left-handed (though I can switch hit, too). I’ve always thrown and caught left-handed, too, but lately I’ve noticed that I’m throwing more with my right when casually tossing something. I do have a left shoulder injury, but I don’t really want to become a right-handed thrower.
I can write tolerably well with my right hand, due to practicing for my own amusement at times. But it isn’t equally as good as my left-handed writing. I did find myself writing with my right hand on a chalk board recently, because it was set up in a way that made writing left-handed on it inconvenient. I didn’t even think about it until I was partway through.
I’m surprised by the lefties who say the big problem with right handed scissors is the squeezing of the handles/blades. For me, the big problem is having to sight differently to cut on a line. When I give the righties my left handed scissors when they say they can’t see how scissors can be handed, that’s the first thing that surprises them: “I can’t get the blades to align on the line I want to cut”
I don’t know what I am. I write with my left hand, throw or kick a ball lefty, but bat, play golf or shoot a rifle right handed. In fact, I’m totally unable to throw righty or bat lefty. I’m right-eye dominant.
I say I’m left-handed though.
I must have figured that part out somehow. I’m not even aware of it now. But also, as I mentioned, I can’t get lefty scissors to work for me anymore because it’s a huge effort to not squeeze the handles now.
I voted Ambi. There are things I do better with my left and other things I do better with my right but, with the exception of chords on a guitar, here is nothing I can’t do with either hand.
Being right handed, I don’t take much notice of handedness. So, I wasn’t inclined to click on a post about it. I’m sure it’d be much more noticeable to me if I were left handed.
Then I realized that this poll would probably vastly overestimate left handedness, because it would preferentially attract people motivated to care about handedness, namely, left handed people.
So, I felt an obligation to you all to come here and set you straight.
I’m definitely right handed, but I find a few tasks easier to do with my left hand. For whatever reason shaving and brushing my teeth seem like tasks that are natural for me to perform with my left hand, and seem just as awkward to attempt right handed as writing left handed would be.
Write left-handed. Eat left-handed. Left-eyed, so shoot a rifle against my left shoulder.
Kick right-footed, bat right-handed, throw right-handed.
Brush teeth with right hand. Use right-handed scissors. Of course, who knows with that; had a short bout of “forcing” in kindergarten in South Dakota, to fix my “wrong-handed” use of pencils/scissors, but the writing part never took hold.
