The Left Hand (Left-Handedness)

[Giant R]

Golfer Phil Mickelson is right handed, but plays golf left handed, he does this, according to reports, because when watching his golfing father practice, the young Phil copied his father's swing in a mirror image.

"was practicing his chipping in the back yard when his son and future six-time major champ picked up a golf club and started swinging — left-handed. The legend goes that Phil was trying to be a “mirror-image” of his right-hand swinging father, so even though he does everything else right-handed, the lefty swing stuck."

https://golf.com/instruction/phil-mickelson-right-handed-swings-lefty/?amp=1

I wonder if a lot of it is the way you are taught? Probably true for me with a mouse. Although my older brother taught me to play cricket and he is right handed but batted left so this is starting to make my head hurt. The more I think about it I fire a gun or rifle left handed ( only at the fair!) but bow and arrow is just as comfortable in either hand.

 

[Endlessly Amazed]

I am left-handed; none of my siblings or my parents are. I can do some, but not all, activities with either hand. I am also dyslexic and after 6 decades still have a lot of trouble with right and left directions. When I am tired, the dyslexia gets much worse.

I am much better at orienting in the outdoors. Inside big buildings, I usually get lost. I attribute this to my pigeon forebears, who may have been left-winged.

 

[Mythopoeika]

I remember when I was a young child, trying to decide which hand to use. I could do some things with my left hand that I can't do now (like writing). I can't do those things now because I must have decided that it was easier to use my right hand.

 

[brownmane]

I am left-handed; none of my siblings or my parents are. I can do some, but not all, activities with either hand. I am also dyslexic and after 6 decades still have a lot of trouble with right and left directions. When I am tired, the dyslexia gets much worse.

I am much better at orienting in the outdoors. Inside big buildings, I usually get lost. I attribute this to my pigeon forebears, who may have been left-winged.

I too have problems when someone gives me instructions such as "turn left, then right". I do much better with the south, east, north, west directions. And if telling me to tighten something with a screwdriver, tell me clockwise or counter clockwise

 

[brownmane]

The only thing (that I know of) I do totally left handed, is write.

I can't knit, though I now suspect that I am left handed with it. I would sit side by side with my grandma, who knitted and crocheted, and she would try to show me how to do a stitch. No matter what, even though I swear my hand movements copied hers, the stitch came out opposite. Now having worked with a few people who are strictly left handed, I have found that we do little things that don't seem to have a handedness, but that confuse people who are right handed.

Perhaps it is the teeny barely noticed differences that make it difficult to study left handedness. In a right handed world, lefties have no choice but to deal with right handed tools. If we can't do it, and it's not a necessity (like knitting) we don't do it. Also, if we ourselves don't realize that we are doing things "backwards" how can right handed people identify minute differences that even they would be unaware of unless they worked with a lefty?

Things that I think I do left handed: knit, crochet, tie knots, filing. I can tie my shoelaces with a double knot so that all I have to do is pull and they are completely undone. Others who try that end up with a knot.

I cannot cut with scissors or knife with my left hand, but can use other utensils in either hand. I'm told that I use a manual can opener backwards.

So I am not totally left handed, but just enough to cause me problems.

 

[brownmane]

Here's an interesting little factoid (as I don't know where I heard this, and I don't know if it's true): left handed people can write very easily in mirrored writing ie. the writing will appear correct if viewed in a mirror. I have always been able to do this slowly, but with little concentration needed. I have asked other people if they can do this, but am often met with. I can't believe how uncurious people are.

 

[Eyespy]

I am of an age where right hardness was "actively re-inforced" at school, so hover between RH and LH. I like to play word games on my iPad, recently I have noticed that many of the infuriating ads for games are prefixed with statements to the effect that only "Left brained" will be able to complete this. Any idea what the basis for these ridiculous claims are about, do they only want Right handers to play their stupid looking games?

 

[brownmane]

I am of an age where right hardness was "actively re-inforced" at school, so hover between RH and LH. I like to play word games on my iPad, recently I have noticed that many of the infuriating ads for games are prefixed with statements to the effect that only "Left brained" will be able to complete this. Any idea what the basis for these ridiculous claims are about, do they only want Right handers to play their stupid looking games?

And those of us that use BOTH sides of our brains will be able to do them hands down.

Of course those of us who are left handed living in a right handed world have had to figure out how to work with both sides.

 

[hunck]

In the current Masters snooker tournament which features just the top world 16 players, 6 of them are lefties, which is way above the statistical average. Another odd thing is some of them change to right handed when using the rest.

Even odder is Barry Hawkins who plays left handed but is actually right handed in all other things.

 

[Ermintruder]

There have been some statistical analyses made of prehistoric human Left/Right- handed tendancy (notably the study reported by the BBC twenty years ago Left Handedness common in Stoneage) all of which appear to indicate that the frequency/commonality of this trait has remained unchanged for at least tens of thousands of years:

In general the general population today about 12% are left-handed, though populations vary considerably, between 3 and 30%.

Because handedness has a genetic component the researchers wondered why the proportion of left-handers should have remained so constant over 30,000 years - the age of the oldest cave studied.

They suggest that because left-handedness is relatively rare it provides certain advantages over those who are right-handed, such as in solo and group fighting.

The researchers say their findings add to the evidence that the evolutionary forces that cause right- and left-handedness are independent of culture.

I do question their overall research conclusion (and let's see who else detects a flaw in the same way I do) but if we accept the premise of "no change" in Handedness for tens of thousands of years, the situation long before that was intriguing.

I'm sure that because left:right Handedness is provably an undifferentiated 50/50 amongst all of our cousin apes, there have been conclusions derived which hint strongly that the origins of speech (pre-heralded by early neurological brain hemispheric specialisation) were the major drivers for this, rather than evolutionary advantage for combat. I can't find a citation to support this assertion, but instinctively it seems logical.

Especially when it is remembered that speech and motor movement are inextricably linked whilst people 'paint shapes in the air' with their hands & bodies as they talk (cf my past-mentioned observation that non-native speakers of a given unfamiliar language tend to maintain a rigid non-physiocommunicative stance that reminds one of a stroke victim).

Physical interaction creates narrative, within & outwith both the producer & the witness.

Whether living, making or taking life, this is inherently what it means to be Homo Sapiens. War/actions make thoughts|words; thoughts|words precede/accompany/substitute for war/actions.

And the capacity / specialisation for being left *or* right handed is an emergent token of an inner depictive/speculative specialisation, wherein being left or right handed is neither advantageously right nor wrong.

 

[catseye]

I've got five children and two of them are left handed, which is above statistical average. However, on my side they have a left handed uncle and a great grandmother who was totally ambidextrous. On their father's side it is right handed all the way. So is there a strongly maternal influence on handedness, does anyone know? (I'm right handed, but not strongly so).

And the children are my first one and my last born, if that makes a difference.

 

[escargot]

Had some left-handed fabric-cutting shears for xmas. I've only ever used right-handed ones before as stupid self-aggrandising affectations like lefthandness were not tolerated when I was growing up.

To my delight I'm learning a skill all over again. It must be like when I was about 4, trying to master scissors for the first time.

 

[brownmane]

I've got five children and two of them are left handed, which is above statistical average. However, on my side they have a left handed uncle and a great grandmother who was totally ambidextrous. On their father's side it is right handed all the way. So is there a strongly maternal influence on handedness, does anyone know? (I'm right handed, but not strongly so).

And the children are my first one and my last born, if that makes a difference.

Interesting thought. I have a slightly different query which still doesn't exactly explain how genetics dictates handedness.

In my maternal extended family (of which there are three families from three siblings) the eldest of each family is left handed to some degree. I am entirely left handed for writing, can manage utensils with either hand, but can only cut (scissors or knives) right handed. My two eldest cousins in the other families only eat left handed and, I assume, write left handed. We have never discussed our handedness so I don't know how left handed they are. I am somewhat left handed in that the other things I do left handed are not every day tasks that people would notice (such as filing left handed).

Neither of the maternal siblings were left handed. I know my grandmother was not, but don't know about grandfather.

My paternal grandfather was left handed. None of his children were left handed afaik (I do believe this to be true, though, as me being left handed, my dad would have told me). But this afaik, didn't translate into left handedness for any of my paternal cousins.

One of my 10 nieces and nephews started writing left handed when learning to print, but her parents stopped her. None of the others are left handed.

So when and how handedness is determined is very interesting.