mental_floss magazine
SUBSCRIBE >
GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS >
DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS >
subscriber services >
Where Knowledge Junkies Get Their Fix
Happy Left-handers Day to 10% of our readers! As the son of a lefty, I’ve always been hyperaware of you freaks (Joking!), and have always been convinced that you are, as the word goes, more creative and artistic. So what’s the best and worst thing about being a lefty? Enlighten us — the other 90% of the world — would you please.
Meanwhile, here’s a list of cool left-handed facts, courtesy of LeftHandersDay.com:
- 4 of the 5 original designers of the Macintosh computer were left-handed
- 1 in 4 Apollo astronauts were left-handed – 250% more than the normal level.
- Most left-handers draw figures facing to the right.
- There is a high tendency in twins for one to be left-handed
- Stuttering and dyslexia occur more often in left-handers (particularly if they are forced to change their writing hand as a child, like King of England George VI).
- Left-handers adjust more readily to seeing underwater.
- Left-handers excel particularly in tennis, baseball, swimming and fencing
- Left-handers usually reach puberty 4 to 5 months after right-handers
Comments (34)
Comment
- Follow mental_floss
YAY!! power to the lefty’s. i was wondering when the specific appreciation day was. :D thanks for posting this
posted by ashley on 8-13-2007 at 4:58 am
Hooray – my brother and I are both lefty, making a southpaw majority amongst my siblings. We both went to music school, so maybe that’s the best thing about – the theoretical right-brain dominance!
The worst thing? The elementary-school safety scissors that gave blisters and never worked. . .ugh. Or maybe that I learned to use a mouse right-handed, so I feel permanently stunted in my computer-art-making capability.
posted by Liz on 8-13-2007 at 5:49 am
Happy Left-handers’ Day!
I’m a lefty and on this special day, I would like to offer a helpful tip to other fellow lefties…
For anyone who experiences the annoying problem of smudging when writing or drawing …there’s a new little glove called SmudgeGuard that would solve this problem. I have bought one and it really works! I don’t get smudges on the side of my hand or pinky anymore! You can check it out at http://www.SmudgeGuard.com.
Hope this new tip will make your life as a lefty more easier! =)
Again, Happy Lefthanders’ Day!
posted by Rachel on 8-13-2007 at 6:38 am
I always thought it was a little weird that I was the only natural righty in my family. My two brothers and mom are both natural lefties and my dad’s a forced righty. Apparently public schools in the 50’s didn’t like lefties. But to my knowledge, he wasn’t a stutterer or dyslexic as a result.
posted by Jeremy on 8-13-2007 at 7:25 am
I lived in West Africa for two years where everyone eats out of a common bowl with the right hand only (the left is reserved for other purposes). Two of my teammates were lefties, and until I watched them struggle to coordinate getting their food into their mouths with their right hands, I never realized how hard life can be for those who are left-handed. On your day today, I salute you.
posted by Julie on 8-13-2007 at 8:13 am
my sister and i are both left-handed, and proud of it! i think my only major issue growing up was using a manual can opener. i spent most of the time shredding the label rather than cutting the lid. a small price to pay, i think.
Happy Left-Handers’ Day!
posted by mary on 8-13-2007 at 9:05 am
woot woot!!
leftys rule I’m a lefty and so is my WHOLE family except formy mom and thats it!!
haha
posted by Meghan on 8-13-2007 at 9:11 am
I attended grade school in the 50’s and never experienced any pressure for me to switch. However, I do remember feeling resentment because all the other kids’ desktops kinda wrapped around to form armrests and my elbow went unsupported. *sniff*
posted by Rich on 8-13-2007 at 9:29 am
Best thing about being a lefty: Ending up semi-ambidextrous from having to live in a right-handed world.
Worst thing: Schools with no left-handed desks.
posted by Jerrod on 8-13-2007 at 9:31 am
Weird thing: I am right handed but every man with whom I have had a significant relationship has been left handed. My closest friend growing up – also left handed. I wonder why I seem drawn to lefties. (My grandfather who raised me was a lefty- maybe that’s why)
Also, I eat left handed. I cannot eat right handed at all, even though I do everything else righty.
posted by Allison on 8-13-2007 at 9:31 am
My dad is left handed, so I have fun finding him shirts that say things like: “Everyone is born right-handed, only the truly gifted overcome it.”
One of my favorite “facts” about lefties is that they’re sinister (a term for left-handed dominance), because the devil is trying to take over. Christianity is so weird.
posted by Emily Jane on 8-13-2007 at 9:49 am
What about us ambi’s? We do things about half and half. For example, I bowl left handed, play tenning right handed, bat left handed, eat right handed, write right handed, play golf left handed.
posted by admitme on 8-13-2007 at 10:05 am
Happy Southpaw Day!
Living in a righthander’s world, I, too, am all screwed up. I eat and use a pen lefthanded. I throw, bat, and bowl righthanded. I learned to use a mouse with either hand, and could probably use the 10-key with my left hand it they’d let me. I can be, at times, creative (music) and methodical (planning), silly and sarcastic or thoroughly conventional.
I went to elementary school in the 60’s, and no one forced me to write with my left or right hand, but I’m still all moosed up mentally anyway. LOL.
I do wish I’d learned to throw with my left hand. I’d have loved to be a major league pitcher.
posted by Terry on 8-13-2007 at 10:18 am
Worst, people watching you write, and then asking if you are left handed
posted by bruce on 8-13-2007 at 10:25 am
worst things:
1.the left handed desks are always in the back corner of the room.
2.the plastic left-handed scissors you get in kindergarten.
3. those damn pens at the bank with the metal attachment on the right side.
4. spiral notebooks
5. eraseable pens
posted by jenni on 8-13-2007 at 11:00 am
My mom is right-handed, but she writes like she’s a lefty, so everyone asks her if she’s left-handed. Go figure.
posted by Pointy-Hatted Geek on 8-13-2007 at 11:29 am
I’m a lefty, and it annoys me when those checkout line credit card machines have the pen attached to a short leash on the right. Discrimination!
posted by Nate on 8-13-2007 at 11:42 am
hey jack the ripper was left-handed.
No one was able to teach me how to hold a pencil until the third grade. So I had to verbally communicate everything till then.
posted by Alex on 8-13-2007 at 12:36 pm
i always have to be the first one to sit down at the table to get the left handed seating area…and i hate round tables because ther is never a safe zone. on square tables there is only two spots to eat at without bumping elbows with the right handed people at the table. and reading instructions sometimes i take longer because i have to decipher and work backwards to get the idea correctly….
ah.. the tribulations of the left handed geniuses
posted by ricosuave on 8-13-2007 at 12:46 pm
Not a lefty but the question came up the other day about why there are no left handed keyboards or 10keys
Anyone know?
posted by Lindsey on 8-13-2007 at 1:48 pm
Although a product of the 70’s, my “old world” grandmother, who babysat me 6 out of 7 days a week, was convinced my left-handedness was from Satan. If I ate or wrote with the left hand, she would lightly smack it until I was trained (read: forced) to become right handed at most tasks. I still perform better on neuro tests left handed though!
posted by TracyB on 8-13-2007 at 2:16 pm
My grandfather was a lefty and was good at tennis and baseball. He tought me how to throw a ball and so I can throw equally well with my left and right hand.
posted by Gina on 8-13-2007 at 2:17 pm
Hooray for lefties!
The best thing about being a lefty is, well, being a lefty. And lefties are flexible, because we’ve learned to adapt to this right-handed world we live in.
The worst thing about being a lefty is getting ink all over your hand (and the paper) when you actually write with a pen.
posted by Alison on 8-13-2007 at 2:20 pm
Myself, my sister, and my uncle are all left-handed. Therefore, there was always a big production at Thanksgiving about how to arrange the table so that no one bumped elbows. I’m still self-conscience about it when I go to dinner with friends.
Also, I teach, so a lot of times my hand smudges what I write on the chalkboard and dry erase board. I guess that’s the price to pay for the flexibility that others have already mentioned adapting.
posted by Diane on 8-13-2007 at 3:28 pm
I’m a lefty and proud of it.
My bio-father was actually born a lefty, but since he lived in china (cheap excuse, i know) he was actually forced to make his right hand dominant.
Sort of an anti-bidextrous action, i suppose.
posted by Annie on 8-13-2007 at 4:46 pm
Also: I can cut better with my right hand
I’ve always dispised writing utensils with writing on them (even if i can read upside-down)
Binders and spiral notebooks drive me crazy
my mother is the only right-handed person in my immediate family, so we always have to make sure to sit in away that our elbows wont be locked in a battle to the death
posted by Annie on 8-13-2007 at 4:50 pm
ashtrays in the car. if you’re driving, it’s always on your right side…
my desk at my work is L-shaped. the left side offers about 12 inches, the right several feet. guess which side the phone is on?
posted by mupledge on 8-13-2007 at 5:46 pm
Hooray for lefties!
I do pretty much everything left-handed, with the exception of playing guitar and using scissors. I learned how to play guitar right-handed, but I don’t know where the scissor thing came from. I’ve been doing it since kindergarden, where my teacher actually tried to get me to use the left handed scissors and I couldn’t do it.
The worst thing about being left-handed is definitely having to deal with right-handed desks. Especially in lecture halls because the lefty desks (if there are any) are usually on the far left side of the room…where I don’t like to sit. Binders and spiral notebooks are pretty awful as well.
posted by Kaitie on 8-13-2007 at 9:13 pm
One day? The righties rule our world 365 days a year (366 when they can get them), and all we get is one day? That may be the worst part of being a lefty. Everything is oriented for the right-handers’ benefit (and often our detriment, even if it was unintentional). Doors, elevators, desks, even bicycle brakes. While special accommodations are sometimes available (e.g, left-handed scissors, guitars, fencing swords) they usually require extra expense.
On the plus side, however, my attacks were rarely parried even by good fencers back when I had the time to fence. I’ve even scored a touch or two against my right-handed coach. I play guitar right-handed, but I like having the extra dexterity (or should that be sinisterity?) for fretting.
The real worst thing about being left-handed? The usually unconscious pressure to conform to the right-handers.
posted by sfs on 8-14-2007 at 1:44 am
does anyone else wear their watch on their left wrist because that is the way te rest of te world wears it?.. or am i just weird about it … i amways have to take my watch off during tests because i am making too much noise dragging it across the table
posted by RICOSUAVE on 8-14-2007 at 10:55 am
Im a leftie and wear my watch on my left hand. I too wondered if i was the only one lol
Lefties unite and bring hand smudges back into fashion!
posted by bmajor on 8-14-2007 at 1:33 pm
Lefties unite!
I, too wear my watch on my left wrist, always have. If I do too much writing or computer work it has to come off!
I always had trouble using left handed scissors in school, even made my teachers mad because I just couldn’t do it. Still can’t, as a matter of fact!
I am only now learning to use the mouse with my right hand (after 15 years of moving it back to the left side of the keyboard after my husband moved it!)
posted by Kritikritter on 8-14-2007 at 4:47 pm
I’m a proud Lefty as well.
I write, bat, throw, bowl, eat, play racket sports, brush my teeth, comb my hair (what little there is), shoot a basketball with my Left hand. I use my Right hand for the mouse (write and click at the same time), frisbee-throwing, and scissors (I agree with the previous post about the scissors in grade school). I can do most things with both, including shaving, a very tricky proposition.
As for the smudging. I am fortunate to have a Left-handed Aunt who is a teacher. She taught me how to write with my hand straight up and down (instead of a hook or pushing the pen). I still despise side spiral notebooks (I found top bound ones in college, bought 25 of them to make sure I didn’t run out) and the right-handed school desks. I used to get to lecture halls early to take up two desks.
posted by Dusty on 8-15-2007 at 1:18 pm
I would have to say that the worst thing about being left-handed is finding a good left-handed guitar, and if you do, you have to pay around $100 dollars more than you would for the right handed model of it >.
posted by jorge on 4-16-2008 at 9:49 am