Jill Harness
A Salute to Southpaws for Left-Handers’ Day
by Jill Harness - August 13, 2010 - 11:18 AM

Because the definition of left handedness varies so much from study to study, it has been estimated that anywhere from 7 to 30 percent of the population is left handed.  It is generally accepted that around 10% of the population currently consider themselves lefties. Unfortunately, language and superstitions have lead to misunderstandings and many people hide their left handedness as a result.

In an effort to bring pride to the neglected and mistreated southpaws of the world, August 13 has been named Left-Handers’ Day, and boy, are there tons of famous people who deserve some praise for surviving our world of biased right-handed tools, such as scissors, computer mice and guitars.

[Image courtesy of jlseagull's Flickr stream.]

Presidents

Four out of five of the last American presidents are left handed (all except George W. Bush), although Ronald Reagan largely hid his left-preference because his parents and teachers urged him to suppress it. Interestingly, the elections themselves have been dominated by lefties, as even the losers of the race were often left-handed, including Ross Perot, John McCain and Bob Dole (although he is a lefty due to a war injury, not from birth).

While some people have dismissed this information as coincidence, others have recognized its statistical significance and tried to discover why such a disproportionate number of presidents (in recent years), Nobel Prize winners, artists, writers, architects, musicians and mathematicians are left handed. Most people process language on the left-side of their brain, but left-handers process language on both sides of the brain much more frequently than righties. Many people have theorized that this means there is an increased amount of space dedicated to language skills in these individuals. Some people have also suggested that this means these individuals are also capable of more complex reasoning.

Another theory says that left-handers have to find solutions to surviving in a right-dominated world, which provides these individuals with extra mental resilience.

Captains of Industry and Invention

Regardless of the reason that southpaws seem to rise to the top, a number of studies have proven that they are often more intelligent than their right-handed counterparts. In fact, one study showed that 20% of the topscoring students in the SATs are lefties, which is double their representative population. Another study discovered that righties who attend college but do not complete their degree are 15% poorer than lefties in the same boat. Of those that did graduate, the discrepancy increases to 25%.

Many successful inventors and captains of industry were left-handed, including Benjamin Franklin and Henry Ford, or ambidextrous, such as Nikola Tesla and Albert Einstein.

Funny People

While sense of humor is probably not improved by handedness, the idea that lefties are better at communicating could also explain why there are so many funny people who are southpaws. Famed left-handed comedians include David Letterman, Jay Leno, Lenny Bruce, George Burns, Larry Fine, Drew Carey, Tim Allen, Dan Aykroyd, Carol Burnett, Howie Mandel, Harpo Marx, Richard Pryor, Charlie Chaplin, Don Rickles, Jerry Seinfeld and although he’s not technically a comedian, it’s hard to deny that Matt Groening is a funny guy.

Theatrical Artists

Actors, of course, also need to communicate at a higher level than the average person, and there’s an astounding number of celebrity lefties in this field as well. The list includes Matthew Broderick, Robert DeNiro, Richard Dreyfuss, Peter Fonda, Greta Garbo, Whoopi Goldberg, Cary Grant, Mark Hamill, Goldie Hawn, Jim Henson, Rock Hudson, Angelina Jolie, Diane Keaton, Nicole Kidman, Lisa Kudrow, Cloris Leachman, Shirley MacLaine, Sarah Jessica Parker, Luke Perry, Robert Redford, Keanu Reeves, Julia Roberts, Mickey Rourke, Christian Slater, Dick Van Dyke, Wil Wheaton, Bruce Willis and Oprah Winfrey.

Image courtesy of bryanearl’s Flickr stream.

Musicians

Jimi Hendrix is perhaps the most famous lefty guitarist—he used a flipped-over right-handed guitar throughout his career—but he is by no means the only famous southpaw musician you know. Lefty composers include Bach and Rachmaninoff. As for rockers, a few popular left-handers include David Byrne, Kurt Cobain, Phil Collins, Billy Corgan, Dick Dale, Paul McCartney,  Paul Simon, Robert Plant, Joe Perry and Johnny Rotten.

Artists

Similarly, some of the most gifted artists we know and admire are also lefties, including M.C. Escher, Michelangelo, Raphael , and Leonardo da Vinci. Renoir was not a dedicated left-hander, but he was known for painting for a bit of time with his southpaw anyway.

Athletes

While there are famous left-handers in all sports, baseball seems to have the honor of having the most lefty celebrities.

Some famous lefty baseball players you may recognize include Barry Bonds, Ty Cobb, Larry Gardner, Wade Boggs, Ken Griffey, Jr., Tony Gwynn, Reggie Jackson, Babe Ruth and Darryl Strawberry. You might notice that most of these players are known for being great at hitting, and there’s a reason for that…batters have an advantage when the pitcher is throwing with the opposite hand, and since most people are righties, left-handed batters have all the luck.

Boxers also have an advantage if they adopt the southpaw stance (the right foot in front of the left) against an opponent with a standard right-handed pose. That’s part of the reason Oscar de la Hoya and Reggie Johnson have fared so well in the sport. And while he’s not a real person, it is worth noting that Rocky Balboa was also a lefty.

Great Warriors

In the same way that many lefty athletes have an advantage over their righty counterparts, warriors also experience this, as most fighters will only be accustomed to fighting someone who is right-handed. It shouldn’t be too surprising then that some of the best known military leaders in history were left-handed, including Alexander the Great, Joan of Arc and Napoleon Bonaparte.
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Are you a lefty? If so, how are you planning to celebrate? Might be time to treat yourself to that new lefty can opener.

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Comments (61)

  1. Love this! I’m ambidextrous which has worked out pretty well for me. Even though I’m young-ish (29), I grew up down south where my pre-school teacher was dead set against me using my left hand. You know, because of Satan… I actually have a hard time knowing if I’m left or right handed with some things. I have the tendency to just pick an object up with whatever hand is closest. I still don’t know which way I bat. I just approached the plate from whatever side I was on in softball. It irritated the coach a bit.

    It has come in handy for some sports, like you mentioned. I fence both left and right handed and I was also trained in two different schools. 3-on-3 tournaments were a lot of fun. If I knew someone had a lefty in their club, I would fence in whatever style they didn’t. And when up against a lefty, I also went lefty since they were only used to righties. (Most clubs only have one lefty if any.)

    Anyway, back to my teacher, I still am a bit po’ed that I can’t write as well with my left hand as my right. Granted, it looks better than some people’s normal writing, but I sometimes feel like I lost something having not been able to do what came naturally. Once I no longer had left-is-satan as my teacher, we were writing in notebooks which was easier right-handed. I totally got Flanders when he opened the Leftorium. I guard my lefty scissors with my life. :-)

    posted by Joy on 8-13-2010 at 12:00 pm

  2. Traditional celebrations include the burning of spiral-bound notebooks (causing grievous damage to the sides of lefties’ hands since their invention) and clipboards (try writing on the top line of a form when you write with a hook).

    posted by Seth on 8-13-2010 at 12:05 pm

  3. Joy, I totally feel your pain about being forced to be a righty. I colored and ate left-handed as a kid, but my grandmother thought it was wrong to be a lefty and forced everything into my right hand instead. I can’t really write or eat with my left hand very well, but I do a lot of other things the lefty way. In colorguard, I had an easier time spinning rifles/flags/sabres with my left than others did, and tossing rifles/sabres (which is done with the left hand) came really easily as well. Some of my lefty traits are actually not specifically related to using my hands though–for instance, I do cartwheels and splits the way most lefties do them.

    posted by Lens Love on 8-13-2010 at 12:16 pm

  4. I work for an Armored Car service and my handgun is strapped the opposite way on my right side.
    Some people make fun of how odd it looks, but hey it helps me draw my gun faster when needed.

    posted by holly on 8-13-2010 at 12:25 pm

  5. When the spiral-less notebook came out, that was a day to celebrate. God, I hated those things.

    posted by Brent on 8-13-2010 at 12:26 pm

  6. You forgot one of the most prominent, funniest, left-handed comedy slingers of our time: Jon Stewart! Easy to spot, since his commentaries are frequently given with pen in hand. :)

    posted by M.C. Otter on 8-13-2010 at 12:35 pm

  7. Generally a pretty good list. However, under athletes, how in the world could you leave out Warren Spahn, Lefty Grove, and Carl Hubbell? Not only did they dominate baseball as players, they are all in the Hall of fame. Under presidents, although he was ambidextrous and not truly a lefty, you could have included James A. Garfield. Once he simultaneously wrote a passage in ancient Greek with his left hand and Latin with his right.

    posted by Oldguy45 on 8-13-2010 at 12:42 pm

  8. There’s a great book I picked up called “A Left-Hand Turn Around The World” by David Wolman that simultaneously illuminates and dispels a lot of the myths and statistics behind left-handedness. Being a Southpaw, naturally I picked it up!

    One of the points made is that true ambidextrousness is very rare – what it is closer to is ‘mixed-handedness’.

    That said – I write, play billiards, throw baseballs, footballs and basketballs lefthanded, but play golf, hockey, drums and guitar/bass right-handed. When I worked as an electricians, I used tools like screwdrivers and hammers with either hand – it depended on the situation. When I was being taught to shoot, I found that even though I have a rather severe astigmatism in my right eye, I was a better right-handed shot with both rifle and pistol.

    posted by Sean on 8-13-2010 at 12:49 pm

  9. I’m not left handed, but I am left footed and my left eye is dominant. Is there a term for that? I have never cared enough to look into that, but I figure that must be some word to describe it. And the only downside to it was that for hunting I need to shoot lefty, which means that the safety needs to be set up for a lefty.

    For soccer, being left-footed was actually an advantage because it made it easier to play outside mid out the left side and get good crosses in. And being “specialized” like that probably made it easier for me during tryouts. It also screwed up defenders a bit, because you naturally don’t assume that the left leg is the strong leg.

    John

    posted by John on 8-13-2010 at 12:55 pm

  10. As if left-handers weren’t sinister enough, they had to declare their day as Friday the 13th? ;)

    (Think calling them sinister is mean? Look up the origin!)

    posted by gmsc on 8-13-2010 at 12:56 pm

  11. My Dad and Uncle are identical twins – my Dad is right handed, but plays all sports left-handed (golf, baseball, etc.), and my Uncle is left-handed but plays sports right-handed. I’ve always found that extremely interesting.

    posted by Joel on 8-13-2010 at 12:58 pm

  12. I’m a proud lefty, but have mad skills with my right hand on an adding machine. We were taught that way in school, and although it may seem like a bummer,it’s actually an advantage. At my first job we still used ledgers and I was able to run quick calculations and write them in the columns at the same time while a righty would have to stop, pick up their pen, write them down, put down pen and start adding again.

    posted by STL Gal on 8-13-2010 at 1:03 pm

  13. You forgot Tina Fey and Dick Dale (who had already perfected being a left-handed guitarist long before Hendrix)

    posted by Wendy on 8-13-2010 at 1:08 pm

  14. I come from a family that is split about 40% righties 50% Lefties and 10% of us are ambidextrous. Family reunions are always fun because we can all sit lefties on one side of the table and righties on the other, we ambidextrous types would fill in the gaps where needed. There are things I can only do left-handed such as put in my contacts, iron and eat spaghetti, but my left leg is so dominate that my turns and kicks are always the opposite of nearly everyone else. It helped that I had a cousin on my cheer squad that was left leg dominate and we could balance each other out.

    posted by Deni on 8-13-2010 at 1:20 pm

  15. My first grade teacher tried to force me to write with my right hand, much to the detriment of my handwriting. I SO wish I could find a Leftorium. :)

    posted by tinkerschnitzel on 8-13-2010 at 1:37 pm

  16. The four best friends Ive ever had are lefties just like me. I get along better with lefties, and dare I say, I like lefties more. We are much more creative and interesting people. Pardon my discrimination, but it is my day after all :) I wish science would get serious about handedness and figure out why left handed brains use language differently than righties, and what the implications are.

    Also, this blog forgot the most prolific lefty musician/composer of our generation: Omar Rodriguez-Lopez.

    posted by jpfudgeworth on 8-13-2010 at 2:09 pm

  17. I had a similar experience growing up left-handed.

    My mom told me a story about my preschool teacher getting frustrated my first day because I wouldn’t color or use my right hand for anything. The teacher pulled my mom aside and asked if I was mentally-challenged to which she flatly replied ‘he’s left-handed you dumbass’.

    Love you, mom!

    posted by rccola20 on 8-13-2010 at 2:10 pm

  18. I wish I was left-handed!

    posted by ashley.paige on 8-13-2010 at 2:20 pm

  19. I’m pretty lucky that I’m younger (28), because I was never discouraged from being a lefty. Although, spiral bound notebooks and clipboards are the devil.
    I thought I remembered reading somewhere that more serial killers are left-handed, too — creepy, but interesting.

    posted by Jenny on 8-13-2010 at 2:22 pm

  20. @Joel: I’m a twin and left-handed, but playing soccer I’m right-footed. Meanwhile, my twin sister is right-handed, but is right-footed in soccer. We’re weird.

    Actually, I consider myself left-handed, as my left hand is my “fine things” hand. That is, I write, eat, draw, cut (with a knife), etc. with my left hand. However, my right hand is my “sports” hand. I throw, shoot (basketball), carry heavy things etc. with it. Trying to do the latter things with my left hand baffles me and vice-versa. I also cut with scissors using my right hand. The twin sister, on the other hand, does pretty much all of the above with her right hand. So I don’t know that I’m ambidextrous, just divided on what hand does what. But in general, I consider what hand someone writes with to be what “-handed” they are, so I count myself as being a south paw! :)

    posted by Jamie on 8-13-2010 at 2:25 pm

  21. *Of course, I meant my sister is right-handed but left-footed in soccer. Geez, my proofreading skills need tweeking.

    posted by Jamie on 8-13-2010 at 2:25 pm

  22. I’m going to celebrate Left-Hander’ Day by playing my left-handed guitar! Seriously, that’s one of few drawbacks about being a lefty for me. When I was a kid, I tried to learn guitar right-handed, but it just didn’t work. I had to flip it around and play left-handed. It’s quite sad to walk into a guitar shop and see loads of instruments you can’t play. It’s even sadder to see the tiny little corner of the shop where they have maybe two or three (usually cheap) left-handed guitars for us weirdos.

    My nephew is also a lefty and a guitarist but he was actually able to learn to play right-handed. I can’t say I’m not a little jealous.

    posted by Justin on 8-13-2010 at 2:26 pm

  23. What I find the most annoying about being left handed in a right handed world are right handed desks in lecture halls (especially during written exams) and figuring out seating arrangements during meals. I am left handed for everything except sports because my elementary school gym teacher was too lazy to teach the only left hander the left handed approach, and cello because of the same reason (which I find as a advantage because my left hand does all the fingerings). Yay being left handed :)

    posted by Rachel on 8-13-2010 at 2:27 pm

  24. In honor of the day we’re having LEFTovers for dinner!

    posted by Angela on 8-13-2010 at 2:30 pm

  25. @Jenny, I’m 28 as well. Some of us just had teachers who were taught in the Victorian Era.

    posted by tinkerschnitzel on 8-13-2010 at 3:15 pm

  26. Larry Gardner? A famous baseball player we might recognize? Do you have some family connection to him, Jill? Or did someone more knowledgeable about baseball dupe you into including him in a list of otherwise notable players? Because I can tell you, I know a lot about baseball and I had to look him up. So what’s the story?

    posted by Tom B. on 8-13-2010 at 3:29 pm

  27. Whoo hoo, fellow lefties…

    we’re the only ones in our right minds!!!!

    posted by Amy on 8-13-2010 at 3:34 pm

  28. When I would get bored in a class in school (from middle school all the way through college) I would take notes with my left hand. I still do it now that I’m in the workforce, and even though I’m slower (fine when I’m bored!) it’s still legible.

    posted by Anowscara on 8-13-2010 at 3:38 pm

  29. I have no idea what I am! I do consider myself a lefty, though.

    I write with my right, and throw with my left. I bat like any other lefty in baseball, but I golf with right-handed clubs and my dominant foot is my right. I also perform a plethora of other tasks dominantly with their respective hands, with drinking from a can or bottle with my right and from a cup or through a straw with my left being the weirdest (with the exception of being in the driver side seat of the car, when my beverage is in the cupholder to my right and I’m forced to use that hand, regardless of the container).

    It’s ambidextrious, but not at the same time.

    posted by Steven on 8-13-2010 at 3:44 pm

  30. I was lucky enough that my college decided to start selling left-handed notebooks with the spiral on the right side. It was a beautiful day when I bought one of those.

    posted by Myrriah on 8-13-2010 at 3:47 pm

  31. What’s interesting about Paul Simon is that though he’s a lefty, he plays guitar right-handed. Can he play it either way? Or is that too personal of a question?

    posted by Tim S. on 8-13-2010 at 5:14 pm

  32. I just flip spiral notebooks upside down to use them_ it’s easier for me! I hate right handed desks and have- throughout my entire education had to either switch desks or sit sideways.
    It’s weird to me how many people react to my left-handedness as if they’ve never encountered it before: “You’re LEFT handed?!”

    posted by 1992 on 8-13-2010 at 5:23 pm

  33. Today is my birthday also. So I am doing a dual celebration with family and friends.

    posted by Captain Serek on 8-13-2010 at 5:29 pm

  34. My best friend from high school and I are both righties, who are the daughters of lefties. we were the only ones who had an instictive intuition about where things belonged in the other’s kitchen. and our kitchens now are set up with left-handed preferences (soap on the left of the sink, etc) we did tend to get in each other’s way though, always trying to stand to the right of whomever we were working with in the kitchen.

    posted by Heidi on 8-13-2010 at 6:26 pm

  35. Ty Cobb, Wade Boggs, and the famous Larry Gardner were all righties. They merely hit what is called left-handed (although it involves using both hands.) Brooks Robinson, on the other hand, is left-handed, although he threw righty.

    posted by Cliff on 8-13-2010 at 7:48 pm

  36. When I started work at my current job, I inherited a bunch of office supplies that were in the desk from the last person, including a pair of scissors. Fast forward a year and a half (no kidding!), and someone who asked to borrow my scissors came stomping back in the office asking what was wrong with them. It never even dawned on me in that whole time that they were left-handed scissors, and very uncomfortable to a righty! :-)

    posted by C on 8-13-2010 at 8:05 pm

  37. I’m right handed, but my mom is a lefty. She went to school when they forced lefties to write with their right hand. She can write with her right hand as well as her left, but still prefers her left. I always noticed that when she was writing anything, she always used a legal pad as opposed to a notebook. Reading the other comments, I now realize why.

    Mom is the only lefty in the family. When my youngest sister started learning to write and color, my mom said “Four kids and I couldn’t have one that was left-handed?”

    posted by Vicki on 8-13-2010 at 8:05 pm

  38. I noticed that a lot of folks are say, left handed – and right footed – if anyone cares, that’s called mixed dominance. I was tested in middle school because I had difficulty with geometry (as in, I was failing it and doing well in my other courses)and it sometimes messes with that sort of spatial logic.
    Anyway – I’m a lefty but right legged and right eyed. My Mom was the same, until they made her switch.
    Sort of curious, I was told once that handedness was sex linked (e.g. more boys were lefties than girls) anyone know anything about the veracity of that?

    posted by swss on 8-13-2010 at 8:11 pm

  39. I don’t know if left-handedness is related to one’s sex, but it is most definitely hereditary. My great-grandfather was born a lefty but was forced to switch in school. Skipped a generation, and all of my mom’s brother’s are left-handed. My mom had three girl’s and we are ALL left-handed. My sister has a girl and we tried to have her favor her left hand, but alas it wasn’t meant to be.
    It makes for an interesting Thanksgiving when all of the lefties have to sit on one side of the table and the righties on the other to avoid bumping elbows!

    posted by Ashley on 8-13-2010 at 9:33 pm

  40. I’m another example of a lefty who was pushed into right-handedness. (Oddly enough, I seem to be one of the few people of my age (19) in this predicament.) My first grade teacher told me that “the right is for writing”, and at this point in my life, that is about all I use my right side for! I’m left-foot and left-eye dominant, and eat, sew, throw darts, and shoot lefty.

    posted by BZ on 8-13-2010 at 9:42 pm

  41. On behalf of most preschool teachers,I would like to apologize to those who have had to suffer from a teacher forcing them to be right handed. I’m a righty and have had to learn better left hand strength to help my students find writing control,and I think that’s the problem those teachers had is because they couldn’t do it,got mad and became a jerk. I’ve had some parents that I’ve informed about their child being a lefty and they tell me how their just going to teach the kid to be a righty. IMO,this has made the age bracket I teach regress in doing seatwork. They get confused when I tell them to sue the hand that works better.

    posted by lisaj6112 on 8-13-2010 at 10:14 pm

  42. Musicians – Beatles – Ringo Starr.

    posted by srcstcbstrd on 8-13-2010 at 10:44 pm

  43. @ Rachel: I’m opposite. I *HATE* left-handed desks. After so many years accustomed to using right-handed desks, I feel like the left handed ones get in my way when I’m trying to write. :P

    posted by Jamie on 8-13-2010 at 11:01 pm

  44. @BZ though I am left handed I also was taught : write with your right hand” to this day when asked to take a right I have to think about it, otherwise I take a left… plays havoc when trying to give directions as well

    posted by CarlN on 8-14-2010 at 1:24 am

  45. Albert King was a southpaw guitarist and a huge influence on music (including Hendrix). He didn’t bother with a lefty guitar or restringing the right handed ones he played, he just turned them over and played upside down – the low E string was closest on the bottom, the high E on top.

    I have more left handed friends than right handed ones, which makes eating out much easier for us southpaws.

    posted by Logan on 8-14-2010 at 9:44 am

  46. Ichiro Suzuki of the Mariners bats lefthanded. He holds the title for the most hits in a season and the most singles in a season. Don’t know if he’s lefthanded in other aspects.

    I think another reason lefthanded batters have an edge is that after swinging the bat, their body and its momentum is already in the direction of first base. Watch Ichiro at bat sometime and it looks like he’s already running to first base as his bat makes contact with the ball.

    posted by JMB on 8-14-2010 at 2:08 pm

  47. Yay lefties! My dad was the only lefty out of five siblings, but my grandmother, being the shy and demure Irishwoman she is, went off her rocker on his first teacher, who tried to make him write with his right. She decided to teach him how to write at home, but since she was right-handed, she had to improvise. She taught him how to write by taking him out to the driveway, standing opposite him, and writing upside down in the gravel.

    My mom and brother are righties, but my dad and I are lefties. Basically the only thing I do right-handed is use the mouse, but I think my dad bats right and catches left, which I’ve always found sort of odd.

    When I was in high school, we had to do a huge interdisciplinary project/study during our entire senior year, so I did mine on left-handedness: history (and the linguistics of being “left”), psychology, biology, etc. Really learned a lot from that study!

    posted by Leah on 8-14-2010 at 3:03 pm

  48. My mom is obsessed with buying me lefty things ever since I explained to her the difference between so-called “ambidextrous” scissors, and true lefty ones (switched blades)
    She has yet to find lefty notebooks… I’m still trying to figure out how binders work. i just take the paper out when I need to write on it.

    posted by Bri-Bri on 8-14-2010 at 7:52 pm

  49. How on earth do they know that Joan of Arc was left handed?

    posted by Hailey on 8-14-2010 at 9:23 pm

  50. I have to say I always hated composition notebooks!!! I am a teacher and will never require my students to have them.
    I also write with my paper at and angle and used to get yelled at by my teachers because they thought I was trying to look at my neighbor.
    The other thing…I have recently acquired a pair of lefty scissors and I cant tell you how much I dislike them. I guess its from all those years of being forced to use righty scissors!

    posted by Ashley on 8-14-2010 at 11:31 pm

  51. Larry Gardner? How on earth did he end up on the “great left-handed batters” list? I had to Wiki him, and his career numbers (.289 batting average with 27 home runs and 929 RBI in 1922 games) are forgettable. Why not put Ichiro Suzuki, arguably the best active “pure hitter” in the game, on the list instead?

    posted by James G. on 8-15-2010 at 12:41 am

  52. I wouldn’t say I was fully ambidextrous becauseI’m mostly right handed. However, my mom was a left my so in do some things lefty and some righty. What’s funny is that I do some things right handed but in a left handed way. For example I’ll stir with my right hand but I’ll stirring counter-clockwise. I just can’t do it the other way.

    posted by nihil on 8-15-2010 at 2:27 am

  53. Wow. I mangled that post. Should proof read. I swear I’m literate. Honest. (I blame my phone)

    posted by nihil on 8-15-2010 at 2:29 am

  54. I am a righty when it comes to things like using the computer because schools have thing set up the ‘right’ way and it can be hard to change it to suit me. Very useful now when playing PC games.
    When I did archery I found out my aiming eye was my right and therefore had to use a right handed bow.
    I am also able to write with my right hand, slowly and a bit messy, but readable and close to my left hand due to two injuries.

    posted by Aussie on 8-15-2010 at 5:01 am

  55. i know it’s late for this post, but have to share anyway. my dad was just sharing his regret, 40 some-odd years later, for the lengths he went to trying to keep my brother from being a lefty. dipping his thumb in hot sauce, taping it up…till the one day he came home from work and my brother wouldn’t even look at him. he was probably only 4 yrs old or so. still brings a tear to my dad’s eye. of course it’s always good for a joke line from my brother…why he should have more of the inheritance…the ‘twitching’, (which he doesn’t have), ha ha

    posted by monica on 8-15-2010 at 2:48 pm

  56. Yes, a little bit past the official day, but it’s never really too late to brag about our awesome left-handedness!

    I never had an issue, save my first grade teacher struggling to show me the correct way to hold a pencil (he was a righty), and the occasional jest from friends and co-workers. I’m not sure I understand the issues with spiral bound notebooks. Either work on keeping your hand straight while writing, or flip to notebook over.

    posted by Lori on 8-15-2010 at 6:03 pm

  57. I am a lefty so is my sister and my two older brothers are right handed my mom always said she thought that was weird.

    posted by Kari on 8-15-2010 at 7:05 pm

  58. I don’t know why so many people had problems with notebooks and desks in lecture halls. All through college, I took notes starting in the back of my notebooks so the spiral was on the other side. In lectures, I used the desk from the seat on my left. That way I didn’t have to sit sideways and I wasn’t cramped squeezing my legs beneath a desk.

    My biggest problem was with pencils in math class. Nothing is worse than working out a long problem only to realize your hand smeared the lead. The side of my hand was always black from pencil lead.

    posted by Jake Ryan on 8-15-2010 at 11:33 pm

  59. @1992 – I know exactly what you’re talking about! When they notice I’m a lefty, they all stare and say, “Whoa, you’re left handed!?”
    I’ve always hated the limitations I’ve had (and still have) because of the hand I prefer to use. Like binders and spiral notebooks, for example. My hand always hits the binding. I remember when I was younger I would put glue on the side of my (left) hand because if I didn’t my hand would be black from the lead of the pencil. I still do that now from time to time.

    posted by Andi on 8-16-2010 at 2:54 am

  60. I’m like a reverse lefty. I’m right-handed, but I write like a lefty. Meaning I write with the hook that causes my hand to get dirty and my elbow to go off traditional desks. It also makes those signature pads at checkout counters very difficult.

    I’ve tried to correct it but it’s just very awkward when I do. I have yet to find another righty that writes the same way.

    posted by Jon on 8-16-2010 at 11:38 am

  61. When my office computer goes on the fritz, it takes the IT people extra time to figure out the problem because they always forget my mouse is set up lefty.

    posted by braindeadlawyer on 8-16-2010 at 2:10 pm

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