Left-handed people

[Guest ShooterJay]

As a left-handed person, I've always wondered why we're such a minority, and a neglected one at that. It's hard to find left-handed baseball gloves and golf clubs in a sporting goods store, for example, and I'm learning to play guitar righty because there were no lefty guitars in the entire store. (I didn't even know there WERE lefty guitars.) Why are the so few lefties?

 

And for that matter, how does left-handedness come about anyway? Is it genetic?

[The Dames]

Well, think about it....in a business sense, it makes sense to have limited supply.

 

For example....if 95% of the people playing baseball wear right handed gloves, it would be in the stores best interest to have mostly right handed gloves stocked.

 

Dames

[Guest Youth N Asia]

1. You're an absolute freak, I mean left handed? *shudders*

 

Seriously though, year ago when I was looking for a used hockey stick the leftys seemed to outnumber the right handed ones 10-1...it's crazy.

 

I tested my sister on this a while back, I noticed she used her left hand for most baby tasks...I kept trying to get her to do stuff with her right hand, and she'd always switch it to her left, she was 2 then...I don't know how this stuff works out

[Guest Will Scarlet]

Left-handed people never seemed to be that popular. Heck, if memory serves, the Latin word for left-handed was sinister.

 

I actually think I was born left-handed, but everyone around me was right-handed, so I mimicked them, causing me to become right-handed. I am not sure how true it is, but that is a few people's theory as to why I am able to do a lot with both hands without much trouble.

[Guest spiny norman]

Yeah, I think I'm the same as Will Scarlet.

 

I was taught how to write right-handed, and it really really messy. As is my cutting with scissors, etc, basic tasks one learns pre-school.

 

But now new things I learn I can only do left-handed (like guitar, couldn't play it right-handed) or whichever hand. I can still only write right-handed, and there are a few things that I am right-handed with.

 

I guess I'm just one mixed-up boy.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I think left handedness only occurs in 1 of 20 people.

 

I've tried to play guitar left handed before, and it was completely impossible. I'm strictly a righty in everything I do.

[Guest Incandenza]

I wish I was left handed. So few people are southpaws, and I always wanted to be something few other were.

[Guest The Superstar]

I'm left-handed also. Is it true that we die earlier, for whatever reason?

[Guest imajackoff?]

I write with my right hand but do everything else with my left. Im just freakin weird.

[Guest EricMM]

I tested my sister on this a while back, I noticed she used her left hand for most baby tasks...I kept trying to get her to do stuff with her right hand, and she'd always switch it to her left, she was 2 then...I don't know how this stuff works out

what is your sister, a monkey? To test on?

 

Is it true that we die earlier, for whatever reason?

I think it's just because you're more prone to cut your finger off trying to use right handed scissors or can openers or something. Maybe you need a left handed car, so you're more prone to accidents?

[Guest cartman]

I also write with my right and even eat with my right, but I throw lefty...some things I can do both. Weirdo!

 

I think it has something to do woth your brain. They say that the right side of your brain conteols the left side of your body and vice-versa.

[Guest Lord of The Curry]

I'm a strange duck in this case because I write with my left hand but do everything else with my right. Throw a baseball, shoot a hockey puck, swing a golf club, punch. All the strength is in the right. Weird.

[Guest Dace59]

Left hand is 1 in 10.

There are also people that have their hearts slightly to the left instead of right.

 

There is some reason for this, but none that can be seen.

There is no genetic, psychological or physicalogical disadvantage or advantage to it that I can remember.

[Guest papacita]

I used to have a left-handed girlfriend...now I'm all alone...

 

If anyone needs me, I'll be using my right hand to attempt suicide.

[Guest jimmy no nose]

Yeah, I think I'm the same as Will Scarlet.

 

I was taught how to write right-handed, and it really really messy. As is my cutting with scissors, etc, basic tasks one learns pre-school.

Whoa, my mom told me that I used to be left handed and I was just taught to be right handed and my writing and other pre-school skills are very bad as well. I never actually put the two together. Maybe that explains it.

[Guest El Satanico]

Jimi Hendrix was a lefty and played a righty guitar strung in reverse.

 

The Left is often assiocated with the mythology of the devil

 

So it should be assumed that we the left handed people are indeed Satan's children.

[Guest The Superstar]

So it should be assumed that we the left handed people are indeed Satan's children.

 

Well, I *was* born on Halloween...

[Guest Angle-plex]

I do everything with my right hand except when holding a hockey stick. When I get in fights I usually have my right hand back, but I feel just as comfortable putting my left hand back instead.

[Guest redbaron51]

I'm right handed but both my parents are true left handed people....

 

 

weird

[Guest MaxPower27]

I'm right handed, but I only write right handed.

 

I throw, eat, shoot a basketball, shoot a hockey puck, hit a baseball, etc. left handed.

 

I actually write more legibly left handed, as well.

 

*EDIT* I kind of fucked up my wording

[Guest treble charged]

I write with my right hand, but throw, shoot, do everything else with my left hand.

 

My dad is a strange case, though. He's like me, in that he writes right-handed and shoots , in hockey, left handed, but he plays golf right handed. I think it was just the lack of left handed clubs when he was a kid that he had to learn to play right-handed.

[Guest Smell the ratings!!!]

the reason we all write right handed is that we were taught in school to write that way, even though we're left handed.

 

i also noticed that i eat right handed, which is weird. everything else is left though.

[Guest El Satanico]

Why would a school teach someone to use a certian hand. Shouldn't the school just be concerned with teaching the actual writing process.

 

I was never taught to use a certian hand in school. Is this a Canadian thing.

[Guest TheGame2705]

I broke my hand so had to learn to do everything with my left until it got better. I still do everything but wank with my right.

[Guest Ravenbomb]

my God, The Superstar is Vanilla Ice!!!

[Guest The Metal Maniac]

My uncle was born left-handed. Today, he's right-handed, because his mother forced him to be. She wouldn't let him do things left-handed, so now he's right-handed.

 

I once heard a theory that in battles and such in the middle ages, rightys had a better chance of survival...the heart leans to the left, and a right-handed fighter, with sword and shield, would hold his shield in his left hand, thus covering his heart better, meaning his survival rate was better then someone who's heart was virtually unprotected (IE: a Lefty)

 

Kinda thin, but interesting nonetheless.

 

Thinking about the prospects of fights between opposite handed people as well here...That'd be interesting...

 

It looks to me that in right/right or left/left, you essentially have to go through their weaker hand with your stronger to land anything. But in Right/Left, there's no such trouble, as near as I can tell; the only real defense against your strong arm is their strong arm. Odd, no?

 

Course, this is just me trying to think this through my head, so I've probably made a glaring error, but whatever...

[Guest red_file]

Left hand is 1 in 10.

1 in 9, actually, which is really weird.

 

Statistically twice as many men are left handed than women. Lefties are six times likelier to die in an accident, and four times to likelier to die while driving. A few decades ago left handedness in a wife was grounds for divorce in Japan (though I wonder how the guy wouldn't have noticed beforehand).

 

I seem to remember that there was an Irish or Scottish group of people who were predominantly left handed, and they built the staircases in their towers turning in the opposite direction so that when fighting with swords they'd have an advantage over right handed fighters. I really wish I had a reference on that.

 

Apparently there was a study a while back where they did ultrasounds and found 92% of the fetuses were sucking their right thumb, which would seem to indicate that handed-ness is determined in the womb.

 

I'm ambidexterous, so I can use either hand for anything. Except masturbating; only the right will do.

[Guest GeneMean]

I'm a southpaw and play a right handed guitar. LH guitars are generally substandard and overpriced from what I've seen over the years. I was originally going to do like Hendrix and restring a normal guitar upside down but it turns out you have to have some work done on it (nut, bridge and reintonation) so I just decided to conform to the RH masses. Playing a RH guitar means I fret the notes with my favored left hand anyway.

 

It's still a royal pain in the ass though when you go to a big gathering like a family reunion at a park and try to find a mitt when a pickup game of softball starts up.

[Guest IDrinkRatsMilk]

I'm shocked all you guys were forced to be right handed in school. I've heard about schools doing that, but it was described as archaic, barbaric, and cruel, and fell out of favor in the fifties. When I was in school they had a left handed day where all the left handed kids got candy and got to pick what toys they wanted first and stuff.

[Guest Spaceman Spiff]

Yeah, I'm left-handed, and 27 years old, and I was never forced to write w/ my right hand in school. The only things I do right-handed are use scissors (never had lefty ones, so just got used to the righty ones), play golf (learned on righty clubs), and use a mouse.

 

Heredity might have something to do w/ it, as my dad, 3 of his 4 sisters, and his mom are lefty, too.

 

Here's a question for the lefties: how do you use your computer mouse? I have it on the right, and use my right hand. One of my friends is lefty, and he had the mouse on the left, and I just couldn't get the hang of it.