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The Left Hand (Left-Handedness)

rynner said:
This sounds like a 'Just So!' story to me! For right-handedness to evolve in this way by natural selection would take much more time than just from the medieval period.
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I didn't mean it too sound like natural selection, it's just how we have always been. I added the sword and spear bit in brackets to ilastrate my point. I'm not an expert, I just remember hearing it on TV.
 
But if we look at the islamic thing with doing nast things with the left hand and good things with the right hand, it is probably quite old.
 
When I first learned to surf I discovered that I surf 'goofy' footed so it's not just your hands chaps - it's your feet as well!

Do you lead with the same foot as you do with your hands (you know what I mean!)

I can use both my hands for most things although I was taught to write with my right hand and still do.

I have no clue what the difference between left and right is, directionwise and the only way that I establish it is by remembering that I wear my wedding ring on my left hand! I have no sense of direction whatsoever and have to turn the map round and round and round before the other half stops the car and does it himself....you'd think he'd learn after an eight year battle wouldn't you.....
 
An article about handedness in humans and apes:

http://www.discover.com/jan_02/featbiology.html

"Lemurs and other prosimians tend to be left-handed; macaques and other old-world monkeys are evenly split between lefties and righties; among gorillas and chimpanzees, 35 percent are lefties, while in humans that percentage hovers around 10. In other words, the more primitive the primate, the more likely it is to be a lefty. Left-handedness, far from being a recent invention, seems to predate right-handedness. "
 
Yes Emmy, if you are left handed, you tend to be left footed as well. Though, sometimes, you see someone who is right handed who is left footed. Suggesting they were "induced" into being right handed.
 
This thread should really have had one of those poll things at the top, "Are you left, right, both or neither?" :)

I'm right handed, as is my younger brother, but both my parents are left handed. My left hand is useless for much except fork operation (only when used in conjunction with a knife of course, if I'm only using a fork to eat something like fried rice I just use my right hand), typing and anything that falls into "holding things" ;) Although, I can also write backwards with my left hand easier than it would be to try and persuade it to write in the correct direction.

Regarding creative skills, I'm useless at drawing (but then, I don't try very hard). I'm into software development though, which requires such skills in trying to work out how to make the computer do seemingly simple things ;)

Maybe it's just a side-effect of the brain developing from conception that decides whether someone is left or right handed. That would sound quite likely to me, more so than the idea that jousting would be helped ;)
 
David said:
Yes Emmy, if you are left handed, you tend to be left footed as well. Though, sometimes, you see someone who is right handed who is left footed. Suggesting they were "induced" into being right handed.
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I mentioned at the top of this thread that I am dominantly left-handed (as is my brother). However, we are both definitely right-footed, and could never kick a ball with any kind of control without a good deal of practice. I'm sure that's not learned, simply a natural bias - which used to play dividends on the football field against opponents who knew I was left-handed!
 
Lefties

I always understood that your handedness was determined by which side your mother mostly laid you on as a baby. If she laid you mostly on your left side then you would have your right hand in your view and so manipulate and become good with that hand, and vice versa if she laid you on your right side.

Or something like that anyway!

Forty2
 
I never heard that before, but it sounds plausible.

But with all this stuff about SID (Cot Death) and people being encouraged to put their babies on their backs, will we raise a generation of ambidexterous folk?
 
Your suggestion, forty2, as to the way a baby lies, denoting which hand they use, goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks.

They suggested that left or right handedness, depended on the arm with which a mother cradled a baby, as this restricted the childs movement, on one side or the other.
 
Left/Right handedness is a function of which side of the brain is dominant and also a matter of practise and genetics. I am left handed in most things except mouse use and eating. My elder sister is fully left handed (my younger is a half sister an right). Our parents were both righties but one grandparent on each side was left.

Another form of left/right separation is eye dominance which is why some cricketers, baseball players, archers and shooters find it easier to play the opposite way to their handedness. When using a rifle or bow I shot right-handed. Batting at cricket or baseball is not a left/right dominant activity (or so I was in formed by a sports scientist in Liverpool).
 
The Left-handed/Evil gene isolated

Does anyone know of any myths/pre-conceptions concerning left handedness?
I know that until quite recently it was common practise in schools to discourage left-handed writing. Was this because it was thought sinister for some reason?

There's a letter in the current FT (which I have skillfully left at work, so can't quote from) about the struggle between the Neanderthal (left-handed) in us, with the cro-magnum man (right-handed) (right word? left my anthropology degree at work too) causing humanity to be divided. This lead me to wonder what other evils, besides war and prejudice, the left-handed have be traditionally held responsible for?

In an almost related point, I have heard that left-handedness is more common than average amongst gay men. My source, unsurprisingly, is a left-handed gay man. We polled the room, and there were indeed six lefthanders out of ten men. Of course this proves absolutely fuck-all, but it did make me wonder if this is the association that made being a southpaw so taboo in the past.


Anyone make any sense of that?






:)
 
You say you polled the room, where was this room, if it was in a gay bar you would not be surprised to find six gay men be they left or right handed, on the other hand...no pun intended, if it was a room in an ordinary workplace, it would be unusual to find six left handers out of ten, btw, you didn't say if the six were in fact gay.
 
Yes, apologies. I wasn't clear. This was a room of gay men. 6 out of the 10 gay men were left-handed.
 
I've heard of left-handedness being associated with intelligence, but never with being evil or gay.

Perhaps a larger sample is needed to achieve a more accurate statement.

:)
 
I am left-handed, (and not gay :hmph: ) but out of all my friends in school, all the left-handers like me were in top set. And as for being evil, well everyone has an evil streak.

grim.gif
 
Of course being left-handed is sinister! (Etymology of 'sinister', anyone?)
My great uncle is left handed. His teacher caned him for it, so his father went to the school and, er, had a word with the teacher.
I am left-handed and straight as a die, but I knew a left-handed trekkie once who turned out to be that way inclined. His enthusiasm for playing the dame in our primary 6 Christmas play was slightly unsettling.
 
Colin said:
This thread should really have had one of those poll things at the top, "Are you left, right, both or neither?" :)
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NEITHER handed?! How'd you manage that? By being a snake, I suppose. Left-handedness is a wonderful thing to have. It confuses the hell out of people when they are setting your place at dinner. I can use my right hand for most things (yes, that too) but nothing for which I need more dexterity than can be provided by your average flipper.
Is it possible to fire a rifle left-handed without getting a faceful of hot brass?
 
Inverurie Jones said:
Is it possible to fire a rifle left-handed without getting a faceful of hot brass?
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I believe you might be able to get left-handed guns, but I can remember a few l/hnders that had to be forced to shoot r/hnded in the Services.
 
Yours truly included.
One of my workmates tried to fire using his left eye and ended up running about with a sizzling hot casing stuck to the side of his nose. Berk.
 
I'm right-handed (and footed), but most of my boyfriends have been left-handers... maybe I'm just attracted to, ahem, creative types.

I'd give my right arm to be ambidexterous :)

J.
 
Now I'm very confused. I'm righthanded, but artistic and with a high IQ. My husband is lefthanded, with high IQ, but couldn't draw the curtains. He's good at maths and music. Isn't it supposed to be the other way round?
 
Hello all...I am new so please be gentle. I will get to my point in a moment after a little rambling.
As a child I was predominantly left handed (this is according to my mother) but when I entered school, the teacher made me switch to my right hand. I had never thought too much about it until I realized that maybe that's what contributed to my terrible handwriting and my total inability to understand printed instructions! The instruction problem relates not just to those "Japanese-English" ones but any instructions. I like to think I am intelligent (is that oxymoronic?) but this is really a problem. I usually end up having someone interpret or I do my own interpretation which frequently ends in disaster.
OK, rambling over. My question is: does anyone know superstitions regarding "south paws"i.e. left-handed people AND does anyone know if my instruction handicap could be related to that old right brain-left brain thing?
 
there are some odd teching techniques arnt there!...My uncle was rendered virtuly illiterate cos he was left handed and the school teachers used to clout him round the ear when he tried to write left handed!..i sopose better illiterate than a left hooker was thier theory.
 
yes, that WOULD work! I believe the teacher just taped my left hand to my head which would also be a pretty effective deterrent.
I think I heard (or read in some instructions)that the left hand was somehow associated with the devil???
 
The Muslims regard the left hand as unclean.

Carole
 
Wipe with the left?

carole said:
The Muslims regard the left hand as unclean.

Carole
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Isn't that because you wipe your ass with the left hand
when you're on the toilet? Or do right handed people use
the right hand? I am left handed so I haven't checked right
handed peoples wiping technique. :)
 
So are there absolutely NO left handed muslims????How can that be?
 
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