That’s because we kill ourselves trying to use right-handed power tools!
This “abbreviation” thing is awesome. There are a couple pretty fluent people in the class and watching them sign while eating a sandwich (for example) just blows my mind. (Obviously, I am not fluent at all.) Anyway, I think I was kind of unclear about signing the left-hand dominant signer being difficult for the teacher to understand. It’s more that they need to spend a few extra minutes sometimes making sure that she’s doing something right, or conversely, figuring out what exactly isn’t happening when it doesn’t look right.
I’ve always had trouble telling right from left and have just chalked this up to being a lefty, though I’m not sure of the logic behind this. Scared the hell out of my driver’s ed instructor b/c about half the time I’d turn the other way from what he was expecting. So I don’t know if my ASL hesitations are due more to this than to being a lefty. Or maybe I just need to practice a lot more. 
Knowing that the right hander they just shook hands with may have just had hold of himself. 
i am a lefty, and I know all to well it’s many pains. Scissors were the bane of my existence from kindergarden through 3rd grade. My grandma couldn’t teach me to knit, my mom had a devil of a time trying to teach me to sew. Coming out from a class i have black smudges on my hand and spiral indentations on my arm.
BUT…
I fence. And it is a significant advantage. I am accustomed to fencing righties, and so are all the righties. which means when they come up against me… well… I guess I just confuse them. oh yes. It is good. 
Holy crap,you guys. I am so impressed by our adaptation and accommodations in this right handed world. I didn’t even realize all the things that sucked, until it was brought to my attn just now. We consiously and unconsiously compensate for alot here. Although, I have to say, not many of these things will shorten our life span. Which was the original question. But, I found a solution to the evil spiral notebooks! Write from the back of the notebook forward. Ha HA!
Obviously, we know the problems…any more solutions? The butter knife thing really hit home, by the way. And the stupid stick shifts, althought apparently my handicap is a lame excuse cuz I have a best friend who is lefty and won’t drive anything but sticks. So there goes that excuse. Thank you for your support. And have a lovely evening!
Holy crap,you guys. I am so impressed by our adaptation and accommodations in this right handed world. I didn’t even realize all the things that sucked, until it was brought to my attn just now. We consiously and unconsiously compensate for alot here. Although, I have to say, not many of these things will shorten our life span. Which was the original question. But, I found a solution to the evil spiral notebooks! Write from the back of the notebook forward. Ha HA!
Obviously, we know the problems…any more solutions? The butter knife thing really hit home, by the way. And the stupid stick shifts, although apparently my handicap is a lame excuse cuz I have a best friend who is lefty and won’t drive anything but sticks. So there goes that excuse. Thank you for your support. And have a lovely evening!
I’m a supposed righty (more on that later) who grew up with a very dominant lefty mother. Because of this, when a young child, I thought all barber shears, sewing scissors, vegetable peelers, and other devices came in lefty models. I learned to knit left-handed because my mother taught me - for some reason this really cranks people. “ACK! What are you doing? You can’t do that, you’re right-handed!” I needlepoint with either hand. I used to annoy my grade school teachers by occassionally writing left-handed on the blackboard or using crayons with both hands at once. One of them told my parents this was a sign of being seriously disturbed or brain damaged. My mother looked the old bat in the eye and said “you’re just jealous because you can’t do the same” I can eat either style and, when dining alone, will sometimes switch mid-meal without realizing it. I use phones and calculators left-handed. I am left footed in sports. In fact, about the only things I consistently do right-handed is write (and I can still write legibly left-handed) and do crochet. Heck, even my mother the confirmed lefty crochets right handed - it only took her 60 years to surrender on that one.
So, really, I’m not sure you can call me a righty. Nowadays, when people ask “right or left?” I say “confused”.
I’m right-handed but my mom and her mother are lefties. Poor Grandma, in first grade in 1926 her teacher actually tied her left hand behind her so she couldn’t use it. On the up side, she is more or less ambidextrous, but what a horrible thing to do to a child!
As a child my mom had the most horrible handwriting but in seventh grade her English teacher sat her down and taught her to write by tilting the paper to the right instead of the left. She has better handwriting than I do.
And me? The only useful thing I can do with my left hand is maneuver a fork.
A variation on this is when one person or another (particularly a relative of a relative, from the small towns of Southern Italy, where schools haven’t been invented yet, it seems) sees me writing, and rather than ask me what I’m composing, looks at me and asks, “You’re left-handed?” as if I jammed the pen up my nostril and was writing in that unorthodox manner. “No, you imbecile, I’m right-handed. Why are you looking in the mirror? Can’t you see me standing right here next to you?” Where’s Al Jaffee when you need him, huh?
I have coped fairly well, though, as far as living in a right-handed world. Right handed desks never bothered me, for one thing. However, I am reading a tennis book now, unable to afford tennis lessons at the time. It’s a very good instruction, thorough. However, all of the diagrams are of right-handed players. Not too much of a problem - until you aren’t sure if you’re playing the stroke just right or if you have the right grip. Then you realize how nice it would be to have a lefty diagram. I’ve tried to use a mirror, but that gets a bit unwieldly. I went to Kinko’s to see if I could make reverse copies, but have learned that the only machines that do that charge one buck per copy. So what I’ve done is I have made regular copies and then I paste them up to the light, where I can see the reverse image, that is, the lefty image. Apart from the pictures, there is the necessity to interchange “left” for “right” and vice versa in the descriptions.
It could be annoying at times.
And here’s a little bit of irony. This entire book never ever makes any accomodations for left-handed players (e.g. advising how they could go about reading the book without any lefty diagrams, having a few lefty diagrams dispersed throughout for our convenience, etc.). The only mention, in fact, of left-handed players (which I found through the index), is how to play against one. Left-handed players don’t appear to exist unless they are your opponents. And who wrote the foreword to this book? John McEnroe, a left-handed player.
I hate the whole “hand shaking” thing. I know righties think you’re supposed to shake with your right hand because they wipe themselves with their left hands. It unnatural for lefties to extend the right hand, plus they’re requiring us to be rude by their own standards. Oh well, being female, I don’t have to shake hands as often as I would otherwise.
The little wands for the atm/credit card things at check outs are rooted on the right, and the cords don’t quite reach the far left of the screen where you’d want to begin your signatures. On the other hand, no pun intended, when you’re given something to sign on paper, it’s always angled away from you even if the rightie passing it accross to you can see you holding the pen in your left hand. Why?
Now, here are things no one has brough up yet. Bra hooks and necklace closures are also situated for righties. Necklaces especially are very difficult to put on unless you squeeze the lever open with your right hand in sight before putting it behind your head. Rulers, gardening shears, and many types of irons suck also.
As for leftie baseball gloves, I have a nice one. My dad found it at a thrift shop, with the tags still on it, because it was donated when the store it came from couldn’t sell it.
I too hate sprial notebooks with a passion. My hand writing vastly improved, though, when I switched from medium point to fine/finest point pens. I avoid pencils whenever possible because I hate the mess too.
But I’m not sure I understand the comments about razors. Mind you, I’ve never shaved my face, but I use razors regularly on my legs and under arms. I switch from one hand to the other when I’m shaving, so I’ve never noticed a bias…
My dad is a lefty. His twin is a righty.
Dad’s mom was a school teacher, and an evil woman as well. She tied dad’s left hand down to teach him to write with his right. He learned, but never did it beyond the years that Grandma taught him.
My ex is a lefty sometimes and a righty others. He eats, writes and shoots left handed, so he thinks of himself as a lefty. Everything else is with his right.
I learned how to knit left-handed. I tie my shoes upside down as mentioned above, but other than that I’m a confirmed righty.
If you think those smegging awful righty desks are bad, try being a lefty and six foot seven like my brother … if he’s lucky, the classroom has a flip-up handicapped desk. Otherwise, he has to sit in the front row, much to the dismay of the people behind him, so that he has somewhere to put his legs. And he always writes on the opposite side of the paper from righties – I hesitate to call it the “wrong” side or the “back” side, cuz it’s the front for him.
Fun with electronics salespeople: Find the biggest, coolest, most ergonomic, function-laden, expensive joystick/trackball/mouse in the store and ask “Do you have this in a left-handed model?” Most of the time they’ll give you a blank look and say “You can just use it with your left hand, can’t you?” You have to demonstrate that what is ergonomic for a righty is very un for a lefty. Most of the dang things aren’t even made in a lefty version, even if the box says “right-handed” somewhere in small print. I grew up using my lefty brother’s computer, so as an ambidextrous mouser I really wish I could get a nice curvy mouse that’d work on the left side.
What about drinking fountains? Those are generally right-handed. And I don’t know about other locations of the Great Coffee Empire, but at the store I work at the espresso bar is made for right-handed use, as I discovered when carpal tunnel ravaged my right wrist. Power buttons on electronic equipment, especially computers and monitors, are on the right.
Dragonblink the Compassionate Righty
I LIKE shooting semi-auto rifles lefty. I don’t have to either take my hand off the grip or reach over the rifle to rack it. And rightys are always complaining about the safety on an AK. Ha! I can just flip it off with my right hand.
I do get brass in my face occasionally, but hey that’s why you wear eye protection.
Bullpups, however, are right out. (pun intended 
Pistols must have an ambidextrous safety if I’m actually going to be using it for selfdefense. I can deal with righty mag releases and slide locks.
BTW, anyone who is interested in shooting for practical reasons should practice with either hand, in case your dominant hand is injured or something.
Well, I’ve just been removing my dented fender and it’s attached on with the world’s most rusted bolts (taking a short break after spraying a little WD-40 on em) and discovered another irritant for a left-hander: “righty tighty, lefty loosie”. It’s generally much more difficult to take a bolt off with a rachet than it is to put one back on, and having to loosen it to the left involves the use of the right hand (pulling across with the left doesn’t create enough torque for those first couple of pulls!) So, trust me, I’ll be damning right handers for quite a while today ;).
this is totally unrelated… but it cracked me up so I’m posting. When I read the above I could have sworn it said “Ladies”, try reading it with that word replaced for a good laugh.
It pisses me off when I’m at a crowded metro stop and the driver doesn’t give people enough time to get off and on the train.
Oh.
You wanted to know what pisses me off related to handedness.
Well, that also happens at the metro stop. The little metro card reader is to the right of the turnstyle, so, when I’m holding my metro card in my left hand, I have to cross it over my body to put it in.
Coca-Cola vending machines, the new one with most of the front curved like a coke can, but the money part is flat. They jam the coin slot maybe an inch (if that) away from the frame for the fake canfront. I have small fingers, and its hard to get to the coin slot. Can imagine what folk with big hands have to suffer thru. The can-shaped Pepsi machine, right next to the Coke, doesn’t have this problem.
I’m a righty (mostly, I’ll find myself switching at odd times, but I write righty…unless I’m bored.)
I like left hander desks. I get to sit crosswise and the non note taking hand has a place to rest.
Just my oddness I guess.
We do?
Butter knives! You know, those fancy ones with the offset blade so Mr. Righthander keeps his hand discreetly away from the butter? If you’re a lefty, you either get your knuckles right in the butter using the damn thing, or you have to turn it upside down and slice the butter with the dull side of the blade.
The fact that you run counterclockwise around a baseball diamond. If they had just put first base on the left side of the infield, all the righties would be relegated to the outfield and we lefties would be playing short, second and third.