# Sherlock Holmes-style observational deductions
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 22, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768 "2009-10-22T18:38:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Bisected8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bisected8)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2009, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/21 "2009-10-25T18:31:13Z")
> [@ghardester](#):
>
> “How are you? You have been in Afghanistan I perceive.”
>
> The first words that Holmes said upon meeting Watson.
> [The Second Anglo-Afghan War 1878-1880](http://www.garenewing.co.uk/angloafghanwar/articles/watson.php)
>
> But today, could you tell who just just got home from there?
>
> In earlier times the attire that a person wore was more likely to define them in a certain class of worker or business owner. They didn’t change clothes, or even bathe, so often as in common now.
>
> Now clothes are not so defining. A ditch digger will come home from work, shower, shave, put on very expensive duds, and go out on the town. Yes, there is still a class factor, but it is not so easy to define a person simply by looking at them.
>
> There are still clues that can tell you something about a person. If I thought you were 40-50 ish but wanted to narrow the age down, I would pull up the sleave on your left shoulder.
>
> If I can see a visible small pox vaccination scar, you are probably 50 or older. Looks like someone shot you in the shoulder with a .45, you are at least 50 years old.
>
> They later realised that the big scab wasn’t needed and later vaccinations produced only a small blister that went away without major scarring.
Don’t be so sure, me and most other early 90’s children (I was born in '89) in Britain have a small mark (a round area of about 5mm diameter, slightly paler than the rest of the skin and resembling a blister made of scar tissue) on one of our upper arms from when we received a TB jab in Secondary school (I’m not sure how widespread it is, but I’ve noticed a few other people at university have one).
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### Author:  [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2009, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/22 "2009-10-26T13:38:36Z")
You mean, things like: In a meeting, the ones in suits with pads of yellow, 8 1/2 by14 inch, paper are the lawyers. The ones who look unused to wearing ties, with cardboard tubes (for rolled-up plans) next to them are engineers.
On a construction site, the ones wearing clean, new-looking hard hats without any stickers (except maybe a company logo) are the engineers and managers.
And I’m pretty sure if you lined up me and my friends with our hands exposed, you could tell which one has worked as a welder. I’ve never looked closely, but I bet the chef would be guessable on close inspection, too.
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### Author:  [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2009, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/23 "2009-10-26T15:59:32Z")
If, upon looking at a body, one notices signs such as a lack of breath or a grayish pallor to the skin, one can deduce that the person has passed on.
That would be a Sherlock Holmes-style death gaze.
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### Author:  [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2009, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/24 "2009-10-26T16:32:57Z")
> [@Quercus](#):
>
> You mean, things like: In a meeting, the ones in suits with pads of yellow, 8 1/2 by14 inch, paper are the lawyers.
No – they are the lawyers from the US. Lawyers from other countries would use A4 pads.
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### Author:  [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2009, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/25 "2009-10-26T17:39:52Z")
You use Evian skin cream, and sometimes you wear L’Air du Temps, but not today.
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### Author:  [@goodie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/goodie)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/26 "2009-10-26T18:38:21Z")
Sage Rat, 95% is perhaps a bit high for a boob preference. My ex-husband and my current boyfriend BOTH have boobs on their chest and they prefer women. 😉
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### Author:  [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2009, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/27 "2009-10-26T18:56:05Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#):
>
> When a person has boobs on their chest approximately 95% of the time they will have a preference for men. If they do not have boobs, 95% of the time, they will have a preference for women.
So most flat chested women are lesbions? :eek:
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### Author:  [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2009, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/28 "2009-10-26T20:21:20Z")
> [@dracoi](#):
>
> Frankly, I think he used a lot of good old-fashioned “jumping to conclusions” and “making unwarranted assumptions.” I haven’t been able to enjoy SH since I read the story in which he "deduces where someone lived because of a little mud on her sleeve, reasoning that she must have sat one side of a coach traveling in a particular direction from a particular town. Even if we agree that was the betting man’s conclusion, it’s still a WAG.
When Doyle was at Edinburgh University one of his teachers, Dr. Joseph Bell, stopped in the middle of his lecture to address a woman he had never met who just walked into the room and discerned she lives near a brick factory in Leith. It wasn’t a lucky guess and he wasn’t wrong. He was the inspiration for Holmes.
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### Author:  [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2009, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/29 "2009-10-26T20:38:14Z")
Steel dental work: Eastern European immigrant.
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### Author:  [@cuberdon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cuberdon)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2009, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/30 "2009-10-26T20:54:38Z")
> [@Quercus](#):
>
> And I’m pretty sure if you lined up me and my friends with our hands exposed, you could tell which one has worked as a welder. I’ve never looked closely, but I bet the chef would be guessable on close inspection, too.
If you could look at their hands, very much so. A callus on the inside of their dominant hand’s index finger, at the base. Another on the thumb side of the same index finger, at the knuckle. From gripping a chef’s knife.
And, minor nitpick, you will probably be speaking to a cook, not a chef. Chef seems to be common usage for “someone who cooks professionally in a restaurant”. In restaurant usage, it is the guy in charge of culinary matters in the kitchen. The cooks are lower down the totem pole, and there are many more of them.
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### Author:  [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2009, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/31 "2009-10-26T20:57:26Z")
\*\*Somebody \*\*watched \*Castle \*this week.
ETA: That was at **JSexton**.
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### Author:  [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2009, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/32 "2009-10-26T21:13:46Z")
> [@LouiseE](#):
>
> If you could look at their hands, very much so. A callus on the inside of their dominant hand’s index finger, at the base. Another on the thumb side of the same index finger, at the knuckle. From gripping a chef’s knife.
In a similar vein, if you see someone with a series of very fine scars on the outside of both index fingers, you might be looking at 1960’s era computer programmer. The scars are paper cuts from handling way too much [paper tape](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_tape). My dad had them - a proud badge of office.
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### Author:  [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2009, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/33 "2009-10-26T21:36:48Z")
Missing finger = shop teacher
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### Author:  [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2009, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/34 "2009-10-26T21:40:23Z")
Or yakuza.
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### Author:  [@rivulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rivulus)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2009, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/35 "2009-10-26T22:17:27Z")
I’m pretty sure that someone could tell I am right handed by the callous on my finger from writing.
I also vaguely remember something about being able to tell if someone is right or left handed by their teeth. Something about how hard you press on one side. Maybe a dentist can confirm or call b.s. on that?
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### Author:  [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2009, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/36 "2009-10-26T22:32:15Z")
> [@ToeJam](#):
>
> I think it’s easier to make these things up after the fact then trying to have a system in place that can work for everyone. However, you may want to try to look into \*cold reading \*though. That’s an art form that certainly does try to use the technique.
This ‘Holmesian’ trick of deducing facts about a person’s life from observation is at best a tiny, tiny part of cold reading. I address this issue in my book on cold reading, where I point out that whereas the Sherlock Holmes stories are of course great, they are _stories_. In real life, trying to make these sorts of deductions isn’t a very useful approach. In simple terms, the deductions that are reliable tend to be rather obvious, while the ones that aren’t so obvious tend not to be very reliable either. If you study the examples given in the SH stories, you find they don’t really bear close examination.
There are people who claim to be quite good at ‘reading’ people in this way, but I’ve spent more time in this field than most, and I would suggest that not many of their claims stand up to examination. I saw a woman on TV once who claimed to be a body language expert. They played some tape of Bill Clinton lying about Monica, and this ‘expert’ was pointing out the various ways in which it was possible to tell that he was lying. This was clearly bogus analysis, because the facts were already known. Show this same ‘expert’ some footage of 12 people, 6 of them lying and 6 telling the truth, ask her to identify the liars and I am very, very confident she would score no better than chance.
Same with people who claim to be oh-so-clever about reading people in the SH style. If the facts are known, they can retro-fit their ‘analysis’ to fit the facts. If the facts are not known, they will be wrong as often as they are right.
As I said before, the deductions that tend to be right tend to sound a bit obvious, while those that are non-obvious are also not very reliable. I have discovered very few exceptions to this general rule. If someone has long nails on the right hand but short nails on the left (as I have), that person very probably plays the guitar. Some people might find this a ‘remarkable’ piece of deduction, but not many. In fact, in my travels I’ve met several people who ‘deduced’ this about me, but none of them were trying to be impressive, and most were either guitarists themselves or knew someone who was.
Here are two examples to have fun with. They _are_ just for fun. What might you deduce from these clues?
1. A dark patch, roughly oval in shape and like a faint bruise, on the mid-to-left side of a person’s throat, about half-way down. Professional violinists often (but not always) develop a noticeable patch of skin like this. It comes from the repeated abrasion of the base of the violin against the neck, built up over many years
2. A woman has several lines or streaks of faint reddish skin discolouration on the outer side of her left hand, between the base of the thumb and the wrist. She has recently been buying cosmetics and testing different shades on the back of her hand (back of her left hand if she is right-handed and vice-versa).
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### Author:  [@Freudian\_Knot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Knot)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2009, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/37 "2009-10-26T22:34:26Z")
> [@rivulus](#):
>
> I’m pretty sure that someone could tell I am right handed by the callous on my finger from writing.
>
> I also vaguely remember something about being able to tell if someone is right or left handed by their teeth. Something about how hard you press on one side. Maybe a dentist can confirm or call b.s. on that?
I believe dentists can tell handedness by how clean one side is from the other from brushing. Right handed people tend to miss the farthest back teeth on the right, left handers the opposite.
Most others can tell by what hand you hold your toothbrush in.
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### Author:  [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2009, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/38 "2009-10-26T23:04:39Z")
On the left handed, right handed front…noting which side of a shopping mall someone tended to walk down might tell you which side of the road they tended to drive down, therefore indicating their country of “origin” to some extent.
This preference for a side might show up in a large number of a persons activities.
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### Author:  [@Hoopy\_Frood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoopy_Frood)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2009, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/39 "2009-10-27T00:57:00Z")
> [@billfish678](#):
>
> On the left handed, right handed front…noting which side of a shopping mall someone tended to walk down might tell you which side of the road they tended to drive down, therefore indicating their country of “origin” to some extent.
Only to some extent. There are more than enough people who don’t get the whole “walk to the right” thing in my experience than what can reasonably be explained away by being raised in a different country.
Usually, I chalk it up to people that have never worked in the hospitality industry (i.e. bars, restaurants, etc.), where if you don’t make sure to pass to the right you will have a lot of collisions that can be costly in multiple ways.
Cluelessness transcends culture.
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### Author:  [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2009, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/40 "2009-10-27T01:32:32Z")
> [@Freudian\_Knot](#):
>
> Most others can tell by what hand you hold your toothbrush in.
Look at a person’s watch. If it’s on their right hand, they are likely left handed, since people typically wear their watch on their non-dominant hand.
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