Handedness: What's Yours?

What is Your Handedness?

  • Left Handed, Sinister, Southpaw.

    Votes: 11 22.4%

  • Right Handed, Dexter, Northpaw.

    Votes: 21 42.9%

  • Semi Ambidexterous, Bi-Dexterous, Cross Dominant

    Votes: 17 34.7%

  • Fully Ambidexterous.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    49
I write with my left hand, but play guitar right handed. If I use a hammer, saw or potato peeler, it's left handed. I can only use scissors right handed etc, etc. ... A side note. My eldest son writes right handed, but picks a guitar up as a lefty. Both my parents wrote left handed.
 
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Rushfan62 said:
I write with my left hand, but play guitar right handed. If I use a hammer, saw or potato peeler, it's left handed. I can only use scissors right handed etc, etc. ... A side note. My eldest son writes right handed, but picks a guitar up as a lefty. Both my parents wrote left handed.
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Mixed-handedness isn't uncommon. However, it's much more rare than pure left-handedness (circa 1% versus circa 10% of the population at large), but not as rare as true ambidexterity.

Please vote in the poll!
 
Mainly right-handed, but I often turn things or make small precise movements (e.g. ATM keypad) with my left.

In particular, I mouse left-handed (though keeping the left button as the primary one). When I started using a mouse, I found it difficult to double-click, so I would single-click and hit RETURN on the right-hand side of the keyboard.

But a left-handed friend who mouses right-handed has pointed out that we each leave our dominant hand free for writing notes, if we're doing that on paper rather than on the computer. That makes sense.
 
My old man was truly ambidextrous, If you watched him on the phone when taking down notes he was constantly changing phone and pen from one hand to another whilst continuing with his scribbles.
I think that’s where I got the awful pun posted above. It was a family joke at the time.
 
Total lefty. Anything I do right handed was forced learned. Guitar, scissors, can openers, etc. Were only learned right handed out of convenience or necessity. Fortunately my parents and school were progressive enough to not force me to write right. My parents shelled out for left handed scissors for me, and a lefty baseball glove. But a left handed guitar was too rare and expensive, and they didn’t really encourage my musical pursuits anyway. But to be truthful there are advantages and disadvantages for a stringed instrument, as both hands are required. If you use your dominate hand for fretting as I do, It’s easier. But your rhythm hand takes way more extra work to learn to keep good time. A lefty is forced to learn to be ambidextrous to some degree, at one point or another in life, I n a right handed world.
 
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My dog Stanley is left pawed. This has become apparent since his injury.
 
Right handed but can do simple tasks like unscrewing nuts/bolts with left hand. Left eye dominant, and navigation 180 degrees out of phase.:dunno:
 
Very but not entirely ambidexterous since I favour certain hands for certain tasks. I don't know how single handers cope.
 
I'm right handed but hold a fishing rod in my right (for strength) whilst winding the reel handle with my left. Didn't think anything about it until a mate once lifted up my rod and wound the reel handle the wrong way.
Also wear my watch on my right wrist - apparently this is odd ?
 
Bad Bungle said:
Also wear my watch on my right wrist - apparently this is odd ?
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It's a bit odd if you're right-handed. Most people find it more "natural" to wear a watch on the non-dominant wrist. There's a practical reason for doing it - that's the arm less likely to be engaged in doing something that makes it difficult (or even dangerous) to read the watch.
 
I'm complicated in this as in many other things. I am basically right handed, but whether this is nature or nurture I don't know. I can remember being repeatedly told off for laying the table left handed as a kid. And of course I only have a left eye - I had to relearn archery left handed to get any good. On the other hand, my wife who was left handed was dominant eye right. So again , she had to relearn archery, in her case right handed.
 
I started of left handed and the school belted the blazes out of us for it - as a result I write with my right hand. It's unreadable to most - in school where they made you write down lots of stuff verbatim (to no good effect) I would often end up with the book turned 180 degrees and writing upside down which worked better for me. Thankfully working in IT I can type everything on a computer these days.
I wear my watch on my right wrist and can't even do up the strap if I try it on my left and on the rare occasion when I use cutlery, it's left handed.
I generally use just one item to eat with either a fork or by preference a spork.
Mice on computers I can use left or right handed and buttons reversed either way - working on other folks desktops a lot it's interesting how many are left handed mice users but do or don't reverse the buttons.
 
A couple of years ago I was at seminar covering some aspects of dyslexia in adults- it was looking for cases where it had not been picked up as children and may be at the root of other workplace problems.

One of the presenters suggested that some of us who present as ambidexterous may actually have a form of dyslexia- basically if you are in a semi permanent state of semi confusion about directions, loose things like keys and glasses, get things in the "wrong" hand etc you may be dyslexic.

They concluded by saying that natural Ambidextrousness was not a third category of handedness, but was the result of a gene mutation which affected how the brain developed.

Not sure how valid this argument was, but it stayed with me as I quite liked the idea of being a mutant instead of cack handed and confused.
 
Going by the poll on this thread it would seem that a far higher proportion of us are left handed than is the norm -although maybe thats just because more left handers are likely to read this thread?
Interesting in eyespy's post above mention of directions. I have a very good sense of direction generally and can normally sense where I should be heading but struggle on familiar roads or paths when I come to a T junction sometimes. Even though I may have used it many times before I sometimes can't picture whether I want to go left or right to reach where I am aiming for.
 
Anonymous said:
What's boustrophedon? I've never heard of this before.
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Boustrophedon, meaning “as the ox plows” in Greek is a style of writing which was popular in some ancient scripts (including Greek), whereby the scribe wrote alternately left to right then right to left. It had one big advantage for speed-readers. You can simply carry on reading without a pause to move your vision back to the start of the next line. It fell out of fashion by around 30 B.C. With maybe 90% of scribes being right-handed, it was obviously more comfortable and convenient (less smearing of ink) to write from left to right only.
 
Being left-handed and a keen amateur seamstress, I'm glad that the business end of a sewing machine is on the left.

All the tricky aspects of sewing machine use are best done with the left hand, e.g. threading, where all the right hand does is hold the reel still on top. Fabric is applied and guided from the left. The lower workings that have to be removed for routine maintenance are on the left.

It's a big help to lefties. I wonder if the original designers were left-handed?
There were lots of prototypes produced before the likes of Singer started mass-production of domestic machines. Someone made the decision to go with a lefty-favouring model!
 
escargot said:
Being left-handed and a keen amateur seamstress, I'm glad that the business end of a sewing machine is on the left.

All the tricky aspects of sewing machine use are best done with the left hand, e.g. threading, where all the right hand does is hold the reel still on top. Fabric is applied and guided from the left. The lower workings that have to be removed for routine maintenance are on the left.

It's a big help to lefties. I wonder if the original designers were left-handed?
There were lots of prototypes produced before the likes of Singer started mass-production of domestic machines. Someone made the decision to go with a lefty-favouring model!
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I'm mixed up dextrous, I write right handed but play the Guitar left handed and when I played football I was predominantly left footed I Bat,Bowl and Throw right handed.
 
Just thinking about all you freaks people who use different limbs for different applications; can you do the thing where you move your hand in a circular motion (say clockwise) while rotating your foot anti-clockwise?

I can only do it if I use an opposing hand and foot. Both on the same side- no chance.
 
Interesting to run across an alert to this thread in my mailbox this morning, under "See What You have Missed."

Just the other day I was telling Tom (spouse) that I've been noticing that when I watch a movie and one of the actors have occasion to write something, that they are very often left handed. Maybe lefties are talented in the acting field?

In other fields, I recalled former Pres. Bill Clinton was left handed, so I did a quick search about U.S. presidents. Turns out after WW2, 6 of 14 were lefties. So... I ask myself, what's different after WW2? Perhaps the rise of TV for presidential campaign exposure? Maybe the winners were better actors than the competitor? (Yes, the real actor, Ronald Reagan, was a left hander.)
 
Eyespy said:
A couple of years ago I was at seminar covering some aspects of dyslexia in adults- it was looking for cases where it had not been picked up as children and may be at the root of other workplace problems.

One of the presenters suggested that some of us who present as ambidexterous may actually have a form of dyslexia- basically if you are in a semi permanent state of semi confusion about directions, loose things like keys and glasses, get things in the "wrong" hand etc you may be dyslexic.

They concluded by saying that natural Ambidextrousness was not a third category of handedness, but was the result of a gene mutation which affected how the brain developed.

Not sure how valid this argument was, but it stayed with me as I quite liked the idea of being a mutant instead of cack handed and confused.
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Interesting. My mother was dyslexic but she was taught to be ambidextrous because she played with the native kids who played equally well in any game left or right handed and part of the games always involved switching hands and feet. It was the way they were taught. She didn't know anything about dyslexia until she went to college and flunked out, then had kids and had trouble reading to us. She went back to college to learn how to read and got a masters in education as a reading specialist (special ed). I was left handed but my dad and my 1st through 3rd grade teacher made me write with my right hand. The only thing my dad let me or my brother do left handed was tie our shoes. He commented on it but didn't tell us we were wrong like he did when we wanted to hammer with our left hand, or some other thing. I do have problems with directions but I think it is because the mangent in my head is flipped because I always know I am going north, but find out eventually I am going north. My older daughter had to be the navigator when she was a kid and we were driving in unfamiliar territory. She always knew which was was north even when we were in a cave. I don't think that has anything to do with right and left handedness or dyslexia.

One thing I know is that left handed people left foot is a fraction larger than their right foot and vice versa for right handed people.
 
I pretty sure my father was naturally left handed but was forced at school in the 1930's to use his right hand so he became ambidextrous in writing and in playing all the sports he enjoyed( much to the consternation of his opponents).
 
PeteS said:
I pretty sure my father was naturally left handed but was forced at school in the 1930's to use his right hand so he became ambidextrous in writing and in playing all the sports he enjoyed( much to the consternation of his opponents).
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I remember my Mam&Dad saying when they were at school in the 1920/30s that the teachers made everyone write right handed and you got punished if you were caught writing left handed.Imagine the outrage if that happened in todays society .
 
M/Hanger said:
I remember my Mam&Dad saying when they were at school in the 1920/30s that the teachers made everyone write right handed and you got punished if you were caught writing left handed.Imagine the outrage if that happened in todays society .
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In 2004 when I went to live in Hungary the assumption was that all schoolchildren were right-handed, with classrooms set up with appropriate light sources and writing surfaces.

When I asked how left-handed pupils would be accommodated there were blank stares. Seemed there weren't any. :dunno:
 
escargot said:
Seemed there weren't any (left-handers)
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This is in fascinating contrast with non-human primates (ie apes & chimpanzees) for whom there is simply a 50/50 split when it comes to handedness. Whilst it's tempting to immediately jump to the conclusion that language capability and neurological development are somehow implicated, I wonder if it's actually even more fundamental than that.

Within this venerable thread there's a very interesting reference to the dominant hand preference potentially being set at a chorionic/fœtal stage of development, and not actually at some c3yr-old mid toddler stage at all.

My proferred corollary is that humanity learned to 'talk' with their hands and bodies (gesture, dance, poise) long before they began to verbalise. We all know this is inarguably-true, that speech & bodily movement are both inextricably linked, and this is all spinal/midbrain/core as a foundation. And this goes a long way to explain the link between emotional suffering and mental anguish suffered when left-handers are forced to act in a way which is entirely unnatural for them (also: the link between speech loss & movement in stroke sufferers....AND, ipso facto, the way in which foreign language speakers often appear frozen/rigid when trying to speak eg English)

Therefore: might becoming a two-legged creature, with excellent conscious motor control skills for limbs and movement, have in itself driven the development of speech? (which in itself is a cypher for handedness).

Although I try to gather accurate references for citation constantly, I've lost the article on how statistics had been extracted from cave paintings (including the earliest hand-stencil-paint-spit creations) in terms of apparent dominance trends left-versus-right. I'm not sure if this was so presumptuous as to claim a valid detectable preference trend.

I think that left vs right handedness may be a false (or flawed) indicator of mental specialisation/ intrinsic personal style, in that it might show some level of correlation (cf visual/verbal/spatial) but I suspect reality is much more nuanced & complex...yet not necessarily indecipherable forever.
 
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