Lefties UNITE!!

slantvaliant wrote:

Buzz Killington wrote: so that's why it takes so long...i thought it was b/c of the girth. turns out it's b/c i'm a lefty. Simon Bolivar, Napoleon, John Dillinger, Billy the Kid, Castro, Ghandi, ...

Scratch poor Billy from that sinister group. What evidence there is points to him being right handed.

Yeah I remember that. The famous photo showing him as a lefty was actually flipped. Some gun enthusiast noticed it by looking at his revolver and noticing it had to have been reversed. Billy the Kid - right handed

integraguy wrote: THE biggest bitch I have in my life is scissors that are designed for right handed people. I know there are left-handed scissors, I just haven't found them.

have you tried the Leftorium?

Us lefties have always gotten a bum rap (just look at the latin words for "right" and "left"!) , but we're probably much more ambidextrous. I just learned to use my right hand for most things like scissors, etc. When I was in desktop support I learned to use the computer mouse with my right hand since everyone I went to help used their mouse with their right hand.

Oddly enough I don't know of another close relative that's also left handed though.

Stan

What are the latin words stan? I'm waaaay to lazy to look it up.

I'm ambedexterous with a mouse too, though I always use my lady hand on laptop toich pads. There's only 1 thing that I do far better right handed....

Putt-putt golf. :D

Wally wrote: have you tried the Leftorium?

I'm not lefthanded, but my wife and boy are. So I'm in the minority around here.

I'm ambidexterous too, especially with a mouse or a calculator, which my coworkers all think is weird. I can write left handed, and it's legible but it ain't pretty. Most things I do with my right because my teachers and my mom trained me to, but I started out wanting to use my left for everything. I am left eye dominant though, which I think is purely because the vision in my left eye is better.

EastCoastMojo wrote: I'm ambidexterous too, especially with a mouse or a calculator, which my coworkers all think is weird. I can write left handed, and it's legible but it ain't pretty. Most things I do with my right because my teachers and my mom trained me to, but I started out wanting to use my left for everything. I am left eye dominant though, which I think is purely because the vision in my left eye is better.

Both Tanner and Trevor are ambidextrous. It is funny watching the doctors freak out with Trev. When they put something to his left he grabs left handed, when they put it on the right he grabs right handed. Tanner has real problems with it because he already has a hearing deficiency. I guess his mind works too hard trying to hear it makes it hard to reproduce the words.

I have several pair of left handed scissors, they're great. Fiskars makes some good ones. The best thing is watching a right handed person trying to use them.

I agree that leftys tend to be at least somewhat ambidextrous, just because they've had to adapt to using things made for right handed people. I use my computer mouse with either hand, which is a good way to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome - if my wrist gets a little sore I can just switch to the other side.

EastCoastMojo wrote: I'm ambidexterous too, especially with a mouse or a calculator, which my coworkers all think is weird. I can write left handed, and it's legible but it ain't pretty. Most things I do with my right because my teachers and my mom trained me to, but I started out wanting to use my left for everything. I am left eye dominant though, which I think is purely because the vision in my left eye is better.

Ambidexterous here too. Played sports left handed but I write right handed. My half brother is the only one in my immediate family that is full blown left handed. I can shoot a gun right handed, but I have to get into my race car left foot first, weird I know.

I also tie my shoes left handed which leads to a funny story. When I was little both my parents who are both right handed tried to teach me to tie my shoes and they couldnt figure out why I couldnt do it. When I got to 1st grade, my teacher was left handed and the first time she asked me to tie my shoes, I did it with her help.I've done it left handed ever since

Basically, DrBoost:

right: dexterous

left: sinister

In Medieval heraldry and calligraphy, the right hand/side is known as dexter (the root of ambidextrious), and the left hand/side is known as sinister (traditionally a negative term). Historically, southpaws have been supressed in favor of the right -handed majority. Of course, in Medieval times, not that many people could write at all, so it wasn't a big deal.

I used to teach calligraphy classes, and inevitably there would be at least one lefty in the class. Writing left handed with a pencil or a ball point pen is easy enough, but when you are using a dip quill with wet ink, a sinister scribe will drag their hand thru the ink, smearing it and ruining the piece. Methods to solve this are various, my favorite being a wooden dowel with rubber tips, used to suspend the wrist over the writing area, with the right hand holding it up.

I am sympatico with southpaws, as I have mixed dominants. I pitch right handed and bat left handed etc. But I have to say, southpaw drawers are a pretty cool idea.

Cool, but sinister.

Let's hear it for the mixed dominants. I'm the oddball in my family by being more right handed than left. I'm left eye dominant and shoot right. That makes for an interesting sight picture. I shoot archery lefty. Left handed recurve FTW. Also the bumper sticker about having to wash one's hands before going applies to a few different occupations that I've had.

My brother made state news during a football game by doing something his coach never knew he could do. Danny was the stud HS quarterback for a podunk town (Lakeview) in Montcalm County, Michigan. There was an away game scheduled at on of the better Grand Rapids schools that the Wildcats were destined to lose before they even padded up, but everyone still got on the bus. The defensive line was far superior to the LHS offensive line and old Dan-O spent a majority of the first half running for his life. With about 4:00 minutes left in the first half Dan called for a left side roll out pitch option pass and for some reason BOTH of the running backs went right. Dan was out on the left naked with a defensive end literally pulling on his right arm when he took the ball left handed and threw to an open player downfield about 30 yards. The Wildcats scored on that drive and the team came back and score twice more on the first two drives of the second half. They only lost by 43 points, but my brother threw with both hands for the next two seasons.

John Brown wrote: ... They only lost by 43 points....

I love a story with a happy ending.

I seperated my shoulder in high school and learned that I can throw a perfect spiral left handed but not very far (whereas messy spiral with right hand but can throw further).

I have a very akward throw with my right arm.

I snowboard and skate goofy foot, I play guitar left handed, but I do pretty much everything else right handed. I can write with either hand, though its not pretty either way (even less so left handed).

I remember being in the first grade and having the teacher (Mrs. Evans as I recall) tell me and a couple of other kids she was going to have us bring in a bucket of soap and water to wash our hands with after writing. The paper was smeared and the part of my hand that did the smearing was black with graphite. It was the first time I knew I was different (but not the last!) being a leftie. I wonder if those who write Arabic or Chinese had those issues??

I also did a bit of calligraphy some years back (still have the pens) and I just had to adjust to get anything to look right.

andrave wrote: I play guitar left handed, but I do pretty much everything else right handed.

Man you really know what to pick to do left-handed haha

I'm right handed, but I know how much of a pain it is to find a left-handed guitar, and when you do it'll often cost more

hotrodlarry wrote: I also tie my shoes left handed which leads to a funny story. When I was little both my parents who are both right handed tried to teach me to tie my shoes and they couldnt figure out why I couldnt do it. When I got to 1st grade, my teacher was left handed and the first time she asked me to tie my shoes, I did it with her help.I've done it left handed ever since.

Heh, I had the same problem. We finally figured out one of my cousins was left handed and he was able to show me how to do it.