It has occasionally caused consternation when someone discovers that not only do I have both left and right handed scissors in my sewing supplies, I can use either equally well. When I was a kid no one told me that was unusual, weird, or “not supposed to do that” so I learned to use them both.
Probably not of scissors specifically, but there may well be Stone Age or Bronze Age tools that have just as much of an inherent handedness as scissors. And effective use of those ancient tools just might have made the difference between reproducing and not, sometimes: If you have two tribes, one where the new chief inherits the old chief’s masterfully-made atlatl and uses it well, and another where the new chief just can’t get the old chief’s atlatl to work properly because the grip is wrong for his hand, the first tribe is more likely to survive the year when hunting is tough.
Minor hijack: I have read that mothers most all prefer to hold infants in their left arm. Right-handed women explain that that leaves their right hand free for doing other things; left-handed women explain that of course they use their dominant arm. The moral is that facile explanations (in terms of scissors or axolotls are inherently suspect.
I’m left handed, and so are my parents. And a large amount of my extended family is as well. (Uncles, Aunts, Grandparents, etc.) I’ve always had the idea that it was genetic from that.
Scissors these days tend to have shaped handles that press the cutting edges towards each other when held in the correct hand, and tend to push them apart in the wrong hand. I haven’t used or bought scissors in a while, but I do remember having to seek out ones with no handedness bias on the handles just so I could be sure to use them without more trouble.
OK, now I really want to come up with some sort of facile explanation of handedness involving cute little salamanders.
Well, looky here: Are You Left-Handed? Science Still Yearns to Know Why
It just arrived in my inbox this morning. General conclusion: no one really knows or even has any good conjectures.
Heh – one of my favorite autocorrects ever
Interesting article, thank you.
Wow, I really expected there to be an actual GQ answer, but it seems our best science to date hasn’t been able to find one.
For what it’s worth, Dad was a righty, Mom was a lefty. They had four children, two of who are lefties and two righties. Mom said she remembered her teachers trying to force her to change hands, but she couldn’t so got kicked out of Catholic school. She liked public school better, she could sit in the middle of the room and nobody noticed which hand she used.
Saw this video in my feed today, seemed relevant:
I have a question for you south-paws.
Background: Im right handed and used to be a track and field athlete. We used to do long jump, high jump, shot put, javelin and other field events. Almost everyone used their left foot for jumping, and as a “stem” foot on throwing events. So all right handed people used to jump with their left foot. You would approach the high jump from the right, and jump off with your left foot.
A very few people would do the opposite, approach the high jump from the left and jump with their right foot.
Is there some kind of opposite function on foot and hand?
I understand why the throwing events would end on the left foot before throwing, since we throw with the right hand, but jumping i dont understand.
I seem to remember (35 years ago) that hurdles worked the same way; Left foot on the ground while rising the right foot to get over the hurdle. I.e. “jumping” with the left foot. (its not called jumping in hurdles but im norwegian so i hope you guys understand what i mean by “stem” foot and other things 
)
Anyways – any thoughts on the opposition between foot and handedness?
Maybe it applies to other sports too?
There are multiple questions, here. First, why do creatures prefer one side over the other at all? Second, given that creatures do prefer one side, why do the majority of humans all prefer the same side? Third, given whatever that reason is, why isn’t it absolute, so we still have some lefties? Fourth, why is that side (for humans) the right side specifically?
Huh - add that to the list of things I did that seem like a lefty (or just plain strange)… Obviously it’s been a while since I’ve held my infant children, and I suspect my 27 year old son would not cooperate with me experimenting, but when I envision holding my kids as babies, holding them with the right arm seems more instinctive.
Computer mouse usage: I did so right-handed, of course, and was developing some pain from it at one point. I tried and tried and tried to learn to mouse left-handed and failed utterly… until I broke my right elbow and HAD to learn. Since then, I can mouse ambidextrously. It’s a great frustration that the trackball mice I like (e.g. Logitech M570) are basically unavailable for the left hand.
For what it’s worth, I would instinctively jump with my right leg, it seems. (left-handed)
Or perhaps ? you learned to use your left hand on the phone to keep your right hand free for, e.g., taking notes? I got into the habit to using my left hand to operate a computer mouse so I could keep my right hand free for other things, like note-taking. (However, I never configured my mouse to be left-handed, which basically swaps the functions of the left button and the right button. I just learned to use it as-is.)
People always like to throw out that many of the POTUS have been left handed. Actually 8 out of 46 have been left handed. Definitely higher than the world population % but not hugely greater.
17.7% vs. 10%-12%
I’m left handed BTW.