Happy Lefthanders Day!

Crumpets

I'm a lefty

I struggle to peel potatoes, I smudge everything I write and I'm the spawn of devil but it's nice to be a bit different

Reoil

I find it impossible to believe that nearly 70% of the board.ie population are left handed.
(Poll results at present).

obezyana

I have a left handed cup it's cool.

coffee_cake

Reoil wrote: »

I find it impossible to believe that nearly 70% of the board.ie population are left handed.
(Poll results at present).

Nobody said they were

Valetta

One of the most well-known "lefties" of the sporting world is Phil Mickleson, except all he does left-handed is play golf. Everything else he does the normal way. :):)

When he was a kid, his father taught him to play golf. Phil stood in front of him and mirrored his actions, and that is how he became a left-handed golfer.

Reoil

bluewolf wrote: »

Nobody said they were

No, but the poll indicates that. This would suggest that left-handed people are more likely to take an interest in this thread and therefore influence the outcome of the poll.

Calibos

I've never ever watched a lefty write without thinking to myself, "Looks like a fcuking Chimp trying to write with a pen."

BUBBLES1978

Crumpets wrote: »

I'm a lefty

I struggle to peel potatoes, I smudge everything I write and I'm the spawn of devil but it's nice to be a bit different

Forgot about the dreaded potato peeling, by the time im finished im left with a marble sized potato :rolleyes:

sbsquarepants

Interesting (probably only to me!) lefty trivia.

In the show Dexter about the serial killer / loveable blood spatter analyst. His name is a little lefty in joke. The latin for right is dextro, left is sinistro - from this we get the words dexterous and sinister. Right handed people were seen to be clever, more able, generally better - lefties were seen as devious sinister creatures, not to be trusted what with being devil spawn and what not. So Dexter is pretending to be the opposite of what he actually is, he's pretending to be a stand up scientist working for the Miami police department while in reality he's chopping people up for fun, he's not really Dexter - he's really Sinister. I found it interesting anyway!

WilyCoyote

South Pawrks

Hayte

The people who polled right handed are probably lefties to be honest. We've been doing things the wrong way round all this time, so why change now?

Menas

Driving manual cars on the continent is a pain in the arse.
Trying to drive on the wrong side of the road and change gear with my near useless right hand has nearly killed me a few times.

That aside, tis great to be different to all those righty wierdos.

BrensBenz

Trouble with scissors, can openers, rulers, etc??? Visit Ned Flanders Leftorium, Springfield, USA.

It's not all that long ago that my late Dad, not known for compromise, stormed off to "visit" the formidable, local primary school teacher who was trying to "cure" my left-handed sister. Yes, in Ireland, it was considered (by morons) unlucky or just not right to be left-handed! I don't believe that my Dad was very concerned about the civil rights of lefties but no-one was allowed to correct his little girl. Apparently, there was a prolonged, full and frank exchange of views but my Dad won on points and my sister continues to be a leftie.

I wonder how many other lefties were victimised by superstitious airheads? It doesn't help, though, when "left" in other languages is translated as Sinister (Latin); Gauche (French), etc. while "right" gets a much easier time, e.g. Dextra, Droit, etc.

Menas

Reoil wrote: »

No, but the poll indicates that. This would suggest that left-handed people are more likely to take an interest in this thread and therefore influence the outcome of the poll.

No, what the poll tells us is that 30% of the people who voted in this thread celebrating left handedness are dumbass righties!

Down with righties!

Menas

BrensBenz wrote: »

Trouble with scissors, can openers, rulers, etc??? Visit Ned Flanders Leftorium, Springfield, USA.

It's not all that long ago that my late Dad, not known for compromise, stormed off to "visit" the formidable, local primary school teacher who was trying to "cure" my left-handed sister. Yes, in Ireland, it was considered (by morons) unlucky or just not right to be left-handed! I don't believe that my Dad was very concerned about the civil rights of lefties but no-one was allowed to correct his little girl. Apparently, there was a prolonged, full and frank exchange of views but my Dad won on points and my sister continues to be a leftie.

I wonder how many other lefties were victimised by superstitious airheads? It doesn't help, though, when "left" in other languages is translated as Sinister (Latin); Gauche (French), etc. while "right" gets a much easier time, e.g. Dextra, Droit, etc.

It was common up until relatively recent times for lefties to be 'cured' by binding their left hand behind their back.

There is also an urban myth that lefties die younger.

But the reason for this is that because in the olden days people were born leftie and then trained to be righties.
So when you look at the average age at death of righties you have an accurate number. But when you look at it for lefties your results are not valid and are skewed by older lefties been classified as righties due to this inhumane retraining.

HeidiHeidi

My mother was forced to be a right-hander when she was young. Her handwriting is impossible to read.

Most of the family are right-handers. My brother is a mixture - plays tennis/snooker/football left-sided, but writes (wasn't forced) with his right. Appallingly as well.

I am a total leftie. Right hand is effectively useless. Was forced to write "straight" in school (I was allowed to tilt the page slightly in compensation) but once I was out I gradually migrated to writing upsidedown - which looks totally deformed when I see anyone else doing it, but feels absolutely natural to me

For a long time I had a dominant right eye which was fun (not!) when shooting, but I got lasered eventually and both eyes are equal now which makes life a lot easier.

One small thing that really annoys me is that you can't get a keyboard with the number pad on the left (well, you can, but they cost an absolute bomb) - I did data entry at one stage and it was a total PITA.

Butter knives and bread knives are the most daily annoying things - serrated on the wrong side, making them fairly useless.

Tokyo

Trigger Happy wrote: »

It was common up until relatively recent times for lefties to be 'cured' by binding their left hand behind their back.

My aunt used to have her left hand bound behind her back and locked in a cupboard at school to "cure" her from being a ciotóg. Same nuns weren't overly happy with ciotóg's either when I was in school, but couldn't physically do a whole lot about it, thankfully.

Tokyo

HeidiHeidi wrote: »

One small thing that really annoys me is that you can't get a keyboard with the number pad on the left (well, you can, but they cost an absolute bomb) - I did data entry at one stage and it was a total PITA.

You can get a separate keyboard and number pad these days and position it whichever way you want - I know a couple of people that have this setup for data entry.

tobsey

Lefthanded 55 67.07%
Righthanded 24 29.27%
Ambidextrous 3 3.66%

Another AH poll that clearly represents society as a whole

Mr. CooL ICE

My dad is a lefty but the christian brothers used to beat his left hand to force him to use his right hand. However, the school football team needed left wingers, so he was 'allowed' kick the ball with his left foot.

Shenshen

Btw, are any of you lefties able to read mirrored letters/writing?

I always put it down to me being lefthanded, I've had a very hard time in primary school memorising which way around the letters are supposed to point, and that you should write from left to right rather than the other way around.

I've always been able to read writing going right to left, upside down or simply mirrored almost as easily as correct writing.
Which occasionally confuses the hell out of me when there's "No Entry" written on the street... takes me a second to process which side that's refering to.

Menas

Shenshen wrote: »

Btw, are any of you lefties able to read mirrored letters/writing?

In primary school when the teacher wrote something on the blackboard and told us to write it in our copy books-what I wrote was 'inverse' and could only be read in a mirror. Its just the way the brain processed it.

coffee_cake

Reoil wrote: »

No, but the poll indicates that. This would suggest that left-handed people are more likely to take an interest in this thread and therefore influence the outcome of the poll.

Exactly
Different thing to "boards population"

Shenshen wrote:

Btw, are any of you lefties able to read mirrored letters/writing?

Well... I suppose so yeah. I don't think I have any particular abilities there though

Pherekydes

I'm left leaning, but not in the least bit sinister.

OneArt

I write and do most things quite well with both hands. Got sent to therapy so that I'd have a dominant hand, as a result I've been conditioned to automatically use my right hand for most writing. Sometimes I slip and will scribble with my left hand if it's easier, which used to confuse the hell out of teachers.

Of course I'm doomed to walk alone, being of either side and accepted by neither. Lefties think that I'll out them and reveal their hiding places, righties suspect that I'm nothing more than a well-trained leftie spy.

I'll just go and scuttle back to my room with my cup of water and lump of mouldy cheese.

catallus

There are some ancient superstitions about left handed people, and they're all true.

All of the evil people in history were left-handed. Every single last one of them.

Pobb

I'm in my 30s and I've only recently found out that I was (am?) left-handed.

I had grown up thinking that it was odd being left-footed whilst writing with my right hand, as all my friends are totally dominant on one side. I also played different sports with different hands and carried out different daily activities with different hands. It was only when I mentioned this to my dad after a few drinks that he admitted that I was born left-handed but he forced me to use my right hand as he thought I'd have a better chance in life - he was brought up in a very Catholic family.

His theory backfired though as my interest in school and learning was totally non-existant from an early age, probably due to the difficulties I had writing, which I hated. I still write with my right hand but with the same style as a leftie - elbow out to the side with the top of the pen pointing away from me - and my handwriting is a scrawl at best.

My sister is a few years younger and was also born a leftie but my dad saw the error of his ways and let her develop as normal. It's certainly not good for a child to feel that they're constantly in the wrong when they're only doing what comes naturally to them.

Eileen Down

If you're not left, then you're not right!



* Gets trident, walks backwards out the door.

Calibos

One would think lefties would be just as good with their left as righties are with their rights as far as writing goes but this is patently not the case. Watch a righty delicately wield the pen between thumb and index/middle fingers. As I alluded to earlier with the chimp example, all lefties I've ever seen write seem to hold the pen in a closed fist. No wonder they cant write for sh1t.

I'm right sided for every single thing but one.

Hand Shandies

I think it is something to do with growing up in the internet porn age. Fine dexterity with the computer mouse took precedence over dexterity elsewhere

Ficheall

Apparently I'm only 39% left-handed
A lifetime of being wrong.


My writing is pretty terrible even with my left hand though, so in tutorials I used to write on the blackboard with both hands (alternately, not at the same time) but I don't think the students ever realised how amazingly awesome I was...