Via PhotoDude, I find out that today is left handers day.
We are more artistic and more talented than our right-handed colleagues…Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were left handed.
We’re not bad at sport too…Maria Navratilova, John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors are only three of the many top tennis stars who were lefties. The world’s greatest footballer Pele was left-handed.
No-one has come up with a definitive reason why about 13% of the world’s population are left-handed, but it is thought to be genetic.
It’s just as well we lefties have some great role models to look up to, for on the whole history has dealt us a series of duff cards compared to the straight flushes tossed out to our right-handed fellows.
We write from left to right, an unnatural action for anyone left-handed since you have to twist your hand up around the pen in order not to smudge the ink with your hand.
We left handers are more likely to get maimed by using tools made for right-handers. Scissors, knives, potato peelers…they’re all made for right-handed people. More left-handed blood has been spilt in kitchens around the world than right-handed because we don’t have the left-handed tools for the job.
But left-handers also excel and die younger:
Researchers have known for years that left-handed people are more likely to use the right side of their brain, while righties use more of the left side.
Typically, left-handed people are seen to be more creative — more likely to notice the size, shape, and form of things, to more quickly see the whole picture or concept. The left-brain-dominant type, usually righties, tends to be more analytical and notice details.
Lefties are more likely to be Mensa members and musicians, according to William Hopkins, a researcher at Emory University’s Yerkes Primate Center and a professor of developmental psychology at Berry College in Rome who has studied left-handedness for more than two decades. But lefties have a greater propensity for dyslexia, schizophrenia, stuttering and other disorders.
“The problems seemingly caused by being a left-hander are much more motor than cognitive,” Hopkins said.
Another researcher, Stanley Coren, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia, claims left-handers exhibit lower life expectancy of nine years and higher risk of injury. Much of it is due to occupational hazards — using tools and equipment designed for right-handers.
I remember struggling in a right-handed world as a kid. In school, there were chairs with a writing slab on the right side only. So I had to use two chairs. All tools and instruments required lots of practice since they were made for right-handed people. And then there was the idea that one does not eat or drink with one’s left hand. The eating part my parents cured (I eat with my right hand now) but I still hold my drinks in my left hand. Over time, I have gotten used to the right-handed world and my right hand is much more useful than the left hand of righties.
Looking back, I see very few lefties in my parents’ generation while there are quite a few in my generation and younger. I guess they were all “cured”.
This post made my day. 😀 Being left-handed can be such a confusing deal though. When I’m on the phone, I always use my right hand to hold the phone up to my right ear, so I can’t talk and eat at the same time (which sucks for all the times I’m on hold with the credit card company for 40 minutes and don’t have anything else to do). But I can write and talk on the phone at the same time.
The greatest irony: Those left-handed scissors are useless for me, whereas right-handed scissors do the trick, for some reason.
As for smudging: I make sure all my pens have micro point. Works for me. Usually.
The majority of tools are produced with right-handed people in mind. It’s a conspiracy, I tell ya.
p.s. jazak’Allah for blogrolling me. =)
im a lefty and when i was in kindergarten mom always took the pen out of my left hand & into my right.it was so anoying i almost cried.She actually TOLD my teacher to never let me use my left hand because nobody in my family was.im way more intelligent than my classmates, who are all right-handed.i’m a pianist,&no-one else plays it.people see it as a disabilaty because i right with my arm like a hook.its discrimination.i still use my right hand for scissors,and when mom says dont eat food with your left,i do it anyway.left handers are diferent and its time people understand that it widens our intelligence capabilities.
i suffer from discrimination from my boss at work. im 16 years old and up to now hav no troubble from being left handed. i get told almost every day to do things with my right hand and i cant do it, when i say that to him he says “if you cant do it right handed dont do it at all”
karolina and eddy: Sorry to hear about your bad experiences related to your left-handedness.
Just remember that only left-handed people are in their right minds.
Amanda: 🙂
LoL, isn’t today International Lefthanders day?
well im a lefty and i was just looking for somewhere to read what other people have to say because i have a right handed friend who basically got mad at me and used the whole “you are going to die sooner” thing against me as if it were a threat. I have read somewhere that it might not even be true! I play volleyball and since i was little the people who taught me pretty much made me to be right handed so now i hit and serve right handed. I wish I had been given an equal opportunity to learn laft handed if not then both. I do have two friends who are left handed so that’s awesome. I’m not discriminated against by my family. ROCK ON LEFTIES!
well, i’m a natural righty, but due to an injury when i was 5, i learned to become ambidextrous. My father is left-handed and my mother is right-handed. Their three children are: my brother(20) is left-handed, my sister(23) is right-handed and i (17) am ambidextrous, but unnaturally ( Or so i’m told). I’m just glad that i can use both hands to do anything rather than being limited to just one dominant hand. I feel bad for some one-handed people because there are many activities where ambidexterity is a positive thing ( Sculpting, fishing, playing piano, typing etc…). I have always been interested in handedness ever since i was like 10 when i did a report on the disadvantages of being left-handed ( At the time, i was mainly left-handed ). I don’t really know the disadvantages by first-hand experience, i still can understand the difficulties. But, due to lefties’ durability, those difficulties can be overcome. LEFTIES and AMBIDEXTERS RULE, lol.
I`m not for sure just what all this means or what but I was using both of my hands at an early age I learned to write draw and use all objects with both hands . Although they say I was predominately left .
doesnt right and left handedness at the same time abnormal that can cause brain flaws =?
as in writing left and writing right at the same time in one person, being able to use your other hand doesnt mean your both, it has to be as tough as writing only
i’m 14. i was naturally born a lefty, but my dad found out we die at an earlier age, so i had to switch. it’s funny though, because many, and i mean MANY people from southeast asia are born lefties.. more than in other places. my dad made me switch but it wasn’t too succesful, because starting first grade i wrote with my right hand, colored with my left, ate with my right, brushed my teeth with my left, etc. i can now eat/press spacebar(hey it’s confusing sometimes)/write with both hands. most of the things i do subconsciously, like brush my hair or using a knife, i do it with my left hand ^^ too bad my life will end early. oh, and being able to write with both hands is great! i can write with any hand if i hurt the other or i can write while using the computer mouse. my dad was a natural lefty too, but he’s at least 97% completely righty. i have no idea how he did it.
Please read my book : right hand, left hand, what significance if you wish ro understand anything on handedness from
the blog : http://bolechette.blogspot.com
No one should make a person write with the opposite hand!! That is ludicrous. There is no basis to do this.
Secondly, the old saw about shorter life expectancy has been long disproven.
Go left!!
PS the “sinister” had to do with approaching with your RIGHT hand extended in apparent friendship, while your LEFT hand was concealed, holding a weapon. SO, LEFT handed persons were actually not the sinister ones….
This is generally offensive.
I know quite a few dim-witted left handers.
It’s nice to know that right handers live a bit longer, but how is it accurate to say that left handers are more intelligent and artistic?
I know someone who can’t spell, do math or draw to save her life.
I wish there were a site that would say “Out of a SELECT GROUP, a larger amount of left handed people are intelligent and artistic than the right handed poeple assessed.”
It’s not like they’ve tested the whole entire population.
There really aren’t many of those sites.
I know most left handed people are proud to be called smart, but please don’t rub it in the faces of the apparently “less interesting” righty’s.
It’s cool you’re different, be proud, have fun. Just please keep it to a minimum.
Now, I know i’m going to get snarled at for this, but hear me out..
I’m savin’ some sensitive righty’s here.
Oh, and left handers really DO deserve a day for themselves. It really is a tough world out there, those viscious right handed tools and what not.
Good luck!