# 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:** 3
### Author:  [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2009, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/41 "2009-10-27T02:07:33Z")
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.
This is an indication that my daughter will not be going anywhere with Billy again, this weekend, or any other.
I don’t care if it is the Homecoming Dance.
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### Author:  [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2009, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/42 "2009-10-27T02:23:11Z")
> [@ghardester](#):
>
> 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.
>
> This is an indication that my daughter will not be going anywhere with Billy again, this weekend, or any other.
>
> I don’t care if it is the Homecoming Dance.
Is Billy left handed? 😕
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### Author:  [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2009, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/43 "2009-10-27T02:24:32Z")
> [@Atomicktom](#):
>
> 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.
It’s no trick to tell if a person is left handed, though this method \*could \*tell you on first glance. What’s more interesting is to survey a crime scene and deduce that the killer was left handed.
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### Author:  [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2009, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/44 "2009-10-27T02:26:21Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#):
>
> Is Billy left handed? 😕
Well
I thought it was about an oval shaped bruise INSIDE and half way down the throat 🙂
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2009, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/45 "2009-10-27T03:00:43Z")
I’m right-handed and wear my watch on the right, and one of my professors is left-handed and wears it on the left.
I’ve also heard that the way one uses a knife and a fork can distinguish Europeans from Americans, but I do it the supposedly European way.
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### Author:  [@Shawn1767](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shawn1767)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2009, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/46 "2009-10-27T04:12:24Z")
My first job was working at the 1984 World’s Fair in New Orleans. I worked in an area called the “Italian Village” selling Italian ices and coffee at a place run by Angelo Brocato. There was this huge and ornate cappuccino machine made of brass (or copper, I think) that built up steam to steam the milk. Well, the metal hose where the steam came out protruded at a weird angle and almost everyone who worked there making cappuccinos eventually got a little inch-long scar on their right hand just below the thumb on the back of the hand from the way they had to hold the cup for the steamed milk. So, I could tell who had used one of those antique machines from that little burn scar.
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### Author:  [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2009, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/47 "2009-10-27T11:23:19Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> \
>
> I’ve also heard that the way one uses a knife and a fork can distinguish Europeans from Americans, but I do it the supposedly European way.
I do too, even though my father always tried to retrain me. I’ve had several Europeans remark on it.
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### Author:  [@ajdebosco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ajdebosco)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2009, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/48 "2009-10-27T17:00:15Z")
If you ever see a current or former police officer in his short sleeves, there is occasionally a tell tale scarring on their right forearm. Any of us that had a K-9 partner will almost always bear those marks of an old training bite we suffered. I’ve heard tazer training now involves getting zapped for certification, but I don’t know if that leaves a mark, my law enforcement days were long ago.
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### Author:  [@foolscap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolscap)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2009, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/49 "2009-10-27T17:01:45Z")
> [@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?
Archaeologist could tell the handedness of stone age people by looking at
the front teeth.
It was from biting a piece of meat, and cutting it off with a stone knife,
this would leave scratches on the teeth, down and to the left on a right handed
individual, down and to the right on the left handed.
I doubt it would be useful these days.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2009, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/50 "2009-10-27T19:18:37Z")
> [@muttrox](#):
>
> In one of Michael Crichton’s books (The Great Train Robbery?) he spends a few pages talking about Holmes. He contends that it was possible to make those kinds of deductions in that particular time and place because of a highly regimented class system, a large number of people who do physical work (each using different muscles) with distinctive physical items (ink, mud, etc.) Today it would not be possible.
>
> Basically, he agreed with ghardester above.
Seconded. I remember a sf story in which a time-traveling Holmes was frustrated by how mass-produced clothing, shoddy consumer goods and a relative scarcity of people doing manual labor made it much harder to “read” people.
John McPhee wrote _Annals of the Former World_, which talked at some length about Holmes and his skill at reading geological and soil clues, and a real-life murder case that turned on such evidence. It’s a fascinating book in its own right.
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### Author:  [@Tenar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tenar)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2009, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/51 "2009-10-27T22:54:02Z")
Not Holmesian brilliance by a long shot, and absolutely not anywhere near foolproof, but my experience is that people (other than attorneys and law enforcement personnel) who use the word “incarcerated” rather than the words “in jail,” “In prison” or simply “locked up,” tend to have spent substantial time behind bars themselves. The same goes for people who respond affirmatively to authority figures by saying “Sir, yes sir!” In my callow youth, I thought that was a sign that a person had been in the military. It now appears to me that it is at least equally likely that the person has been to a boot-camp style correctional facility of some sort.
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### Author:  [@Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncle_Brother_Walker)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2009, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/52 "2009-10-30T06:18:43Z")
> [@Zsofia](#):
>
> Certain tattoos suggest time in prison.
I must disagree.
12 years in the army, three combat tours, 12 months in prison…
No tattoos. Scars, yes, but not from either prison or army. Just life.
IMO, tattoos are for people who want attention, scars are for people who have experience.
I do not need to brag about who/where/what I’ve been. That’s for a lesser person. I’m glad to say I’ve served my time and shut up about it. Buy me a drink, eh?
😃
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### Author:  [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2009, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/53 "2009-10-30T13:48:07Z")
I didn’t say only people with tattoos have been in prison, I said that guy I helped with a job application last night who had a very crude tattoo of a teardrop under his eye has probably been behind bars and may or may not have killed somebody. At any rate, at some point he certainly wanted people to think he had.
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### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2009, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/54 "2009-10-30T13:56:22Z")
A female coworker has been married for four months, and she is very skinny but has just developed a double chin over the past two weeks. She also refused a cup of tea when I offered her one.
I await confirmation that she is pregnant.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2009, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/55 "2009-10-30T14:00:21Z")
Dave Barry once warned of the dangers of guessing about pregnancies, and said you should not assume a woman is pregnant “until you actually see a baby emerging from her body.”
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### Author:  [@Paintcharge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paintcharge)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2009, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/56 "2009-10-30T14:05:41Z")
> [@LouiseE](#):
>
> Nope. The other half is 40 and has a visible scar.
>
> CDC site says that if a person was born prior to 1971 they were most likely vaccinated.
My brother has one, I don’t. 1969 and 1971.
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### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2009, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/57 "2009-10-30T14:10:50Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#):
>
> Dave Barry once warned of the dangers of guessing about pregnancies, and said you should not assume a woman is pregnant “until you actually see a baby emerging from her body.”
There’s no damn way I’m going to say anything to her about it…
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### Author:  [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2009, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/58 "2009-10-30T14:13:02Z")
My wife knew that one of her coworkers was pregnant a month before the coworker did. I think denial may have played a key role in the time lag, however.
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### Author:  [@ajdebosco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ajdebosco)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2009, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/59 "2009-10-30T15:40:08Z")
> [@Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](#):
>
> I must disagree…
> I do not need to brag about who/where/what I’ve been. That’s for a lesser person. I’m glad to say I’ve served my time and shut up about it. Buy me a drink, eh?
>
> 😃
I’ll be glad to buy you a drink, UBW, you sound like a wise soul.
I did five years in the Israeli Air Force, and nearly all my IAF brothers, and most sisters sported a distinctive tatoo of their service. I never wanted one, myself. If I ever do, I’m leaning toward the seven color image of Jiminy Cricket on the upper left half of my chest. 🆒
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### Author:  [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2009, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-style-observational-deductions/514768/60 "2009-10-30T16:04:31Z")
> [@Zsofia](#):
>
> I didn’t say only people with tattoos have been in prison
Yeah, it’s not a case of “every person with a tattoo was in prison/the armed forces” or “every person without them wasn’t.” It’s, “there are certain tattoos that either stylistically or thematically strongly correlate to either time spent in prison or the military.”
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