[Closed] Lefties,stay awesome.

Bloody deviants....

Creative deviants 🙂

Come the revolution they'll be the first to sketch something artistic on the wall.....

Stoopid Flanders

D’oh!

Sinister the lot of you 😉

My wife and both our children are left handed.
I’m considering joining them. After all on a show of hands 75% of the house have voted for leftism.

Sinister the lot of you

They used to think so didn't they!

I grew up in Australia in the 80's. I was made to change from left to right handed. I still hold a pen in my right hand the way a lefty would

Pah, you say awesome, but what are you like defending a spiral stairwell with a sword? Eh, eh?

The use of spiral staircases in medieval castles served as clever defence systems. They were almost always built with the spiral in the same direction (clockwise, when looking up from the bottom) so that the defending swordsman, who would either be coming down the stairs or backing up in reverse, could freely swing his sword. Conversely, the attacking swordsman (ascending the stairs) would have his swing blocked by the wall.

This, of course, assumed that both attacker an defender were right-handed, which most were.

Left-handed swordsman, though rare, had the advantage of surprise when attacking out-in-the-open – they had fought (and trained against) more right-handed opponents than their adversary had fought left-handed opponents. Their attack when ascending standard spiral staircases was also not blocked by the wall.

rich - sinister simply means left handed - as dexter means right handed

PC gone mad

but what are you like defending a spiral stairwell with a sword

I would send Rafael .

It’s not long ago that left handedness was something to be changed, hidden or tied away behind your back

Yonks ago, really though innit?
My son's left handed, dunno where he gets it from cos I'm only left handed at writing and right handed at everything else. #weirdo

It’s not long ago that left handedness was something to be changed, hidden or tied away behind your back

Yonks ago, really though innit?

Indeed, has the OP just woken up from the 70’s?

Pah, you say awesome, but what are you like defending a spiral stairwell with a sword? Eh, eh?

It's OK, us righties can do the defending, send them in when it's time to attack up the stairs.

Wonder why there are less lefties about these days...

Rejoice in your awesomeness.

Every. Single. Day.

bikebouy

Indeed, has the OP just woken up from the 70’s?

Still a fairly long time ago, but I can remember when learning to write at school (mid 80's) that I should try to use my right hand, rather than my left. There was another boy in the class who was similarly encouraged.

My daughter appears to be a leftie.

Growing up, my brother's friend always used to tease me about being cak handed. I used to get quite upset about it and it was only years later that I realised he was actually left handed too, and I think I just completely mis-interpreted his teasing for leftie-camaraderie! 🙂

Working in engineering, I seem to have an inordinate amount of left-handed colleagues. I wonder if there are certain professions where the %age of lefties is way above that of the general population.

Being a lefty is ace - especially because you are challenged from a very early age to cope with little things that aren't designed for you like scissors, tools etc.

just don't play guitar lefthanded

i came here on my right handed mouse looking for cannondale.
i leave left handed and dissapointed..

I used to love playing rounders at primary school - watching everyone look confused as I hit the ball to the right every time was great fun.
On the other hand (no pun intended), I've just being looking for a new mouse. Really fancied one of those ergnomic ones, but it turns out none of the big brands make left handed versions. And work won't let me buy an unknown brand from Amazon.

Hendrix played the guitar left-handed without changing the strings. Came up with a few nice ditties too.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/aug/13/2

It’s not long ago that left handedness was something to be changed, hidden or tied away behind your back

Yonks ago, really though innit?
My son’s left handed, dunno where he gets it from cos I’m only left handed at writing and right handed at everything else. #weirdo

How long is a Yonk?

Anyway, when I started school I worte with my left hand, the teacher told me off and made me use my right. Going so far as to tie my left arm to my side to 'help' me. I'm 'only' 41.

Now I can now write really, really badly with both hands and she's dead, so I supposed we're even.

There's no such thing as comfortable scissors!

Now I can now write really, really badly with both hands and she’s dead, so I supposed we’re even.

I think you've won.

Lefties are indeed fantastic.

Where the hell did you guys go to school? I'm 54 and I didn't have any of that sh*t.

Anyway, when I started school I worte with my left hand, the teacher told me off and made me use my right. Going so far as to tie my left arm to my side to ‘help’ me. I’m ‘only’ 41

Your teacher was a Victorian throwback! How bizarre. I can recall having a "researcher" lady come into our class to ask lefties questions back in about 1975. It was so accepted as to not even be a thing until this lady arrived asking questions. I remember it because it never occurred to her that fanning playing cards was problematic (the cards with suit markings only in 2 corners) 🙂

Where the hell did you guys go to school? I’m 54 and I didn’t have any of that sh*t.

I'm 58 and also had no problems, in fact at a rather harsh primary school I was praised for my neat left handed handwriting, though that was the only thing I was praised for.

only left handed at writing and right handed at everything else. #weirdo

Ah shite. Me too. I probably use my left for some other fine control stuff.

Anyway, only came on here to slag off the radical lefties who hold guitars the wrong way round. It's a two hands job. You don't get left handed pianos, qwerty keyboards or whatever.

I still hold a pen in my right hand the way a lefty would

Odd. I hold a pen in my left the way a righty would.

I was fortunate enough not to be "corrected" at school. The one thing I did get though was at high school, constantly being told off for pressing on too hard. It was years after I'd left that I realise, this is a lefty symptom. Right-handed you pull the pen across the page, lefty you push the pen into it. I can kinda understand why this was corrected in past times, using a nibbed pen must've been near-impossible.

The use of spiral staircases in medieval castles served as clever defence systems.

Another fun fact, the steps are often deliberately set at differing heights. People who lived there were used to it, but an attacker could be made to trip.

I used to love playing rounders at primary school – watching everyone look confused as I hit the ball to the right every time was great fun.

Yup. I wasn't very good at sports, but the sudden screams of "leftie!" followed by everyone scattering in disarray just as I (hopefully) hit the ball was rather satisfying.

only came on here to slag off the radical lefties

You must be so proud of yourself.

I remember it because it never occurred to her that fanning playing cards was problematic

It's the little mundane day-to-day things that most people don't realise, isn't it. Buttons on the wrong side of a phone, pens on chains in banks, or ATM slots where you take your card out of your wallet, offer it up to the slot, then have to turn it 180' because it's the wrong way round (my bank cards are stored upside-down in my wallet for this reason).

There's probably a thread in this...!

Oh, not that I've used them in years now, but cheque books, they were a pain in the arse too. I actually managed to score a left-handed chequebook out of my bank (together with a right-handed wallet for it, so the griffin on the front was upside-down).

I suspect that with more research it'll emerge that it's not as simple as left/right-handedness. For example, I'm left-handed, but I'm right eye dominant so I write with my left but I shoot (Archery and rifles) right-handed. Anything with a single hand grip like tennis I'm a lefty, but a 2 handed grip like cricket I'm more likely to use right-handed.

So where does the line get drawn? Are some people more left than others? Does eye dominance also link to other traits? Does any of this really matter?

using a nibbed pen must’ve been near-impossible.

I use a nibbed pen all the time. Just don't ever let one of those cack-handed righties use it, they'll mess it up.

Computer mice are much better on the right, leaves my good hand free for typing/writing/touching myself/whatever. No idea why righties put the mouse on the wrong side, can only assume they're stupid. Scissors I just use right handed, don't seem to be a problem.

Things that do annoy: ATMs; subway/metro/tube/bus touch panels or ticket slots; inside jacket pockets are always on the left; some kitchen knives are asymmetrical; the little things...

For example, I’m left-handed, but I’m right eye dominant so I write with my left but I shoot (Archery and rifles) right-handed.

I'm left-eyed (and left-footed) but also shoot bows right-handed. Simple reason, when I first learned I instinctively wanted to shoot LH but they didn't have any lefty bows so I had to learn wrong-handed. When I finally got my hands on a left-handed bow I couldn't use it (though could probably have learned with practice I suppose). To compensate I was taught to draw and sight as normal, then close my left eye just before loose for a final tweak of aim.

Guns I'd shoot left-handed, but some you simply cannot do that with unless you want a spent cartridge in the face.

Computer mice are much better on the right, leaves my good hand free for typing

Ditto. When I first used a mouse it was on an Atari ST, the port was on the right and the cable not long enough to reposition it on the other side so I had no choice. These days though, the keyboard is my primary input device so it makes sense to have it on my off-hand.

Things that do annoy: ATMs; subway/metro/tube/bus touch panels or ticket slots; inside jacket pockets are always on the left; some kitchen knives are asymmetrical; the little things…

First time I used the Tube in London I went up to the gate, popped my ticket in the slot and... the gate to my immediate left opened. Chaos then ensued with me trying to back out and a thousand Londoners piling in behind.

You can get left-handed knives. Not really necessary for day-to-day use but a lefty bread knife is a godsend.

Only in sport have i found being a leftie of benefit , rest of the time it can be a nause.

weirdly though i can only throw with my right

the worst is sitting at the desk of a rightie , its like a train wreck of ergonomic layout

The lad's got a sweat left foot ... he'll always get in the school footy team.

TBF his right is coming along nicely too !

This, of course, assumed that both attacker an defender were right-handed, which most were.

It's been claimed that the Kerr family had a preponderance of left handers (hence the term Corrie-fisted) and consequently built their staircases to spiral in the opposite direction.

I'm not sure there's much evidence to support this, but it's a good story.

Guns I’d shoot left-handed, but some you simply cannot do that with unless you want a spent cartridge in the face.

Ooh yeah. Army cadets at school on the open ranges at Warcop with a Lee Enfield .303. I was a marksman at 100 and 200 yards but holding the rifle left handed and then working the bolt after each shot was a real PITA as you kind of punched yourself in the face each time you pulled it back and then had to dodge the spent cartridge.

A real nice kick on those things into the bony shoulder of a skinny 14/15 year old boy in the late 70's. we used to put our berets inside those itchy shirts they made us wear.

As a poncey creative type I work with loads of lefties.

I don’t know what percentage of the population are left-handed but the highest ratio I’ve worked with was in a studio of 16 designers and illustrators, 10 were lefties.

"I don’t know what percentage of the population are left-handed....."

around 10%

IT seems to pull in more lefties than normal. I've had several teams where we've all been lefthanded.

I've got a MAc and PC on my work desk, Mac has mouse on right, desktop has it on left, more for space issues but it confuses the hell out of visitors.

I know my grandmother tried to get me to write with my right hand until my mother told her to back off. the only problem I had a school was dragging my left hand through the wet ink as I was writing with a fountain pen (which probably explains 70% of the interesting ways lefties hold a pen).

Another lefty here! Always thought the split between left and right was fairly even as a child as Mum and two older sisters are right handed and me and Dad are the lefties.
I’m 49 (next week) and never had any problems with school forcing me to be a right hander, although they wouldn’t have got very far if they’d tried! Dad, who is in his eighties, had his mum, a very feisty woman, fight his corner. She apparently stormed off down to the primary school and played hell with the teacher who tried to force him to be right handed!! A brave move in those days I think?!!
As to professions, I was a florist for many years, and us sinister lot definitely dominate there... think there was actually more left handers than right where I worked!

Anyway, when I started school I worte with my left hand, the teacher told me off and made me use my right. Going so far as to tie my left arm to my side to ‘help’ me. I’m ‘only’ 41.

That's shocking. I'm older than you and the lefties in my infant school class were all encouraged.

the only problem I had a school was dragging my left hand through the wet ink as I was writing with a fountain pen

In theory the same should apply to right-handers in the Arabic world, but it doesn't. I worked with a guy who could speak and write Arabic. He looked at me perplexed when I told him the ink drying theory. I asked him to write with his fountain pen so I could watch - he had his hand turned around slightly more than I would, so it went underneath the line he was writing - no issue.

There are definately shades of left to right, dominance is hands, feet, eyes. This podcast suggested that ambidextrous is very very rare, that most people who think they are ambidextrous are actually dominant on one side (usually a leftie who has been forced to do everything rightie): https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07wpf5s

And purely anecdotally, generally more than 10 % lefties in my workplaces in environmental / earth science. Mostly from a maths / physics background. So not so much creative, more logical thought processes.

You must be so proud of yourself.

Eh? The OP’s telling me to be proud? Whatever, I sense factions forming. (Also, the musical instrument thing is interesting.)

Left for writing, throwing, chopping stuff, stirring stuff, whisking stuff.
Right for bowling (cricket), badminton, cricket batting, mouse, guitar, boxing stance, cutlery, holding saucepans.
I can never remember for 10 pin bowling, darts so I'm generally rubbish at both.

the only problem I had a school was dragging my left hand through the wet ink as I was writing with a fountain pen (which probably explains 70% of the interesting ways lefties hold a pen).

I learned to draw from right to left on the paper from the time I drew a beautiful charcoal picture and unknowingly rubbed it all out with my hand as I drew.

just don’t play guitar lefthanded

Try telling that to one James Hendrix, I seem to remember he was slightly good at it. (On a RH guitar no a custom jobbie).