Who else is left-handed? Trying to find out what out proportion of the population is sinister is a tough job: I’ve read estimates of 5%, 10%, 13%, 30%… such ambiguity yells out for an IMHO poll.
Maybe a better question is “who considers themselves to be left-handed?” Defining left-handedness isn’t easy but this can serve as a guide (J.B. Sattler ‘Das linkshändige Kind in der Grundschule’, p 17). Consider which of your hands is preferably used to:
put up in school
switch on/off lights
brush teeth
comb hair
pick up/count things
open window/door
use a screwdriver
throw a ball
draw, paint, write
So what percentage of the SDMB population is left-leaning? If you are, wave your right hands in the air and begin posting with your dextrous left; it’s time to let our butter-fingered presence be felt. Fear our righteous (umm… I mean leftious) wrath, righties!
Oh yeah, right-handers too can attest to their presence. I suppose.
A couple questions for lefties:
Did you have to fight to remain left-handed? I’ve read horror stories of children forced to unnaturally use their right hands since their teachers thought left is (not) best.
Is anyone else in your immediate family left-handed? My father and only brother are.
Got any flowers in the attic? Left-handedness is supposedly identified with mental illnesses like schizophrenia and language difficulties like dyslexia and stuttering. Myself, I had a mild stutter a a child.
Please feel free to contribute your woeful tales of oppression at the hands of our right-handed persecutors.
Moderators: I’ve carefully considered whether this constitutes cross-posting. On balance, I decided to launch both threads: one in GQ for the strictly factual questions and this one in IMHO for polling. I hope this is okay… I simply didn’t want to turn what was a thread posing questions of fact into a survey. I believe both threads fall within the descriptions of the respective forums in which I have posted. :: grovel, grovel ::
Uh, you guys DO know what “cack-handed” actually means, right?
As for myself, I’m ambidextrous in everything except for cursive writing, and who the heck does that any more? I work in IT, so if it ain’t typed, I don’t do it. Block printing all other times.
Curiously enough, I’m also a fraternal twin, and my twin is left-handed.
Yep, it does mean left-handed, and it also means “shit-handed”.
Being that in toilet-paperless countries you use the ol’southpaw to tend to your bum hygiene.
I had always heard that it was about 10% of the population who are left handed, but don’t quote me on that.
I was never forced to use my other hand, but I did find that lots of things like scissors, can openers and corkscrews (to name a few) were all designed for right handed people. They are a major pain in the arse.
No one else in my immediate family is left handed, but my dad plays golf left handed (though no other sports, oddly enough). And I don’t have any mental illnesses that I know of.
I always though butter fingered referred to not being able to catch well, always dropping stuff.
I always heard the same as RickQ about the meaning of “butter-fingers.”
“Ambilevous” isn’t even a word, as far as I know, and a search on m-w.com came up blank too.
I’m not left-handed except when playing baseball, lacrosse, golf or hockey.
Gunslinger (he’s my fiancé, for those who didn’t know) is left-handed, as are my father and my best friend.
Father and best friend have a tendency to write with their entire arm crooked around the paper awkwardly; Gunny seems to write the same way most right-handers do, just with the other hand. How about y’all?
My maternal grandfather was both left-handed and schizophrenic, although it is doubtful the two were linked; his schizophrenia seemed to be triggered by a head injury suffered when his skull got in the way of a submarine hatch during World War II.
I don’t know what you’d call me…
always left - put up in school
always right- switch on/off lights
both, depending what side of the mouth I’m working on- brush teeth
again, both- comb hair
always right- pick up/count things
left- open window/door
right- use a screwdriver
originally left, but learned right over time, can still go left- throw a ball
same, taught to be righty- draw, paint, write
and I stuttered as a kid too, but nothing serious. Went away eventually.
So am I right-handed or left-handed? Not ambidextrous because I can’t use both for most things.
I am right-handed, but am the daughter of a lefty,married a lefty, am the sister of two, as well as the mother of a lefty. I tend to be attracted to southpaws;in my experience, they tend to be creative, stubborn (in a good way!) and steadfast friends.
My husband had some minor speech difficulty as a child. His father was a lefty, was forced to change but went back to his left as a young adult.
I learned to play baseball with my brothers and bat lefty to this day.
I don’t know which way to do the dishes or stand at an ironing board (not that either of these two things happen with any kind of frequency) thanks to a devil’s child mother and older sister!
Pretty obscure, but I was ran out of exact synonyms past two or three. Ambisinister (cf ambidextrous) is another obscure word meaning the same thing.
Check up butter-fingered - a recognised synonym is ‘left-handed’. Comes from the old-fashioned perception that to be left-handed is to be clumsy. Obviously the source of this prejudice that left-handers live in a the world is configured for right handed people. Us lefties, in dealing with this opposite world, may appear awkward using tools that have right-hand preference in their design.
I play cricket right-handed (and I suppose golf too, if I gave that a shot). Probably comes from playing a lot of hockey (in Australia that means hockey played on grass or turf) as a child. There are no left-handed hockey sticks.
I also kick footballs with my right-foot and favour my right leg for bearing weight.
I write pretty much the same way as righties. Don’t turn the paper around; however, my grip is slightly different.
Anyone else find it difficult to learn to use chopsticks?
(There’s another question. How many left-handed people are left-sided? Which ear for the telephone? Which eye for the microscope? Which foot for kickball?)
I do everything with my left hand (and ear, eye etc.). Computer mice are usually on the right side for use with the right hand. Presumably because this is how the righthand fascists want it.
But as a very left handed person, I like this. My stupid right hand can manage clicking, while my left hand is freed up for the more complex task of typing should it come up. I wouldn’t want it on the other side.
So another question, left-handed people, where do you put your mouse? If you use your left hand are you hopelessly irritated that most of the commands are left-click (ie your middle finger)? Do they make lefthanded mice? They must.
I’m sinister. Son of a sinister man. Never had anyone convince me to switch over to the dark side.
Forks, spoons, knives (in the absence of a fork), toothbrushes, writing utensils, clothes irons, counting money, dipping chips into salsa… pretty much anything that requires wrist or finger precision fits into my southpaw.
However, I use my right hand almost exclusively for computer mousing and scissoring… I think FPS-type computer games have reallly reinfoced this over the past few years. How can one not play Quake 3 with left fingers on W, A, S, D, and a hand on the mouse? So no, it’s never bothered me.
For everything else, I suppose I just pick whatever hand is most convenient.
Yes, I also wipe the shit off my ass with my left hand. But the civilized man that I am, I prefer Charmin. Nice fluffy wads of it. And I wash my hands when I’m done.
I use my mouse with my left-hand. Every computer setup I use, at home or at uni, is rearranged to suit my preference. Ha! That’ll show those unsuspecting righties that come to use the computer next!
I haven’t really noticed that I actually use my middle finger to left-click; it certainly doesn’t bother me. Windows has an option to swap the mouse keys around (ie, left button become right-click and vice-versa), but I’ve never used it.
Most mice (mouses?) are ergomonically suitable for either hand. However, we have one Microsoft Intellimouse (it’s an early model silver-coloured optical mouse) at home that is difficult to use with the left hand (it has Explorer ‘back’ and ‘forward’ buttons on the left-hand side of the mouse, meaning I have to use my pinky-finger to press them).
I’m ambidextrous. The only reason I write with my left-hand is because I asked my Mom which hand I should use to write back when I was in kindergarten (couldn’t remember). She told me that I was left-handed, and that’s pretty much the way I stayed. Everything else is an even split. I even use my mouse right-handed at work and left-handed at home.
