Humor · inclusivity · Uncategorized · Writing

On being left-handed

Amy

Any fellow southpaws out there?

I’ve been thinking about making this post for a while. I’m not going to get super scientific. Just a few facts.

The world is made for right handed people. Left-handed scissors? Crap. I’ve had to teach myself how to use right handed scissors, and now I can’t even use left-handed scissors. Every door knob, handle, appliance is geared for a right handed person. Think about hand crank can openers and feel my pain.

Left-handed people are relatively rare in society. About 10% of the population is left-handed. Even more rare are female lefties. Believe me, when I see a fellow female lefty, I get excited. It doesn’t happen often.

Both of my parents were born left-handed, and both were switched at a young age at school due to the belief at the time that being left-handed was the sign of the devil. In the middle ages, being left-handed was thought to be witchcraft. Luckily, my parents didn’t subscribe to either one of these beliefs and allowed me to be my left-handed self. One of my brothers is left-handed. I’m searching my brain for anyone else in my family who is left-handed and I’m coming up with nobody.

For certain sports, there is an advantage to playing left-handed. In tennis there is a clear advantage. Rafael Nadal is a right- handed person. But he plays tennis left-handed. I’m not very familiar with baseball, but I think there is also an advantage of batting left-handed.

There seems to be genetic differences between being right-handed and being left-handed. Left-handers may have superior verbal skills, but scientists still don’t know. All I know is do not ask me to do math.

You can always see a lefty coming. Ask them to show you their pinky and side of their left hand – the part that touches the paper.

Let me know in the comments if you are also left-handed! 👈

Facts.
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Published by Amy

I love words. And animals. Photography and fedoras. Welcome. And stay awhile.

32 thoughts on “On being left-handed”

  1. In baseball, they will throw southpaw pitchers in. They sometimes give right handed batters trouble.
    I am part of the right handed hive collective, but I have a few lefty friend \s and watching them write on the dry erase boards at work was always epic lol

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    1. Ah, yes. It’s the pitchers in baseball.
      Did they write with their hands curved over? A lot of lefties do that. I do not. I write like a right-hander, but using the other hand. I have to thank my handwriting teacher in grade school for that. Lol. I still get I some ink but not hand cramps. 😊

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  3. I never thought about doorknobs… how inconvenient that is for lefties. Thank goodness stick shifts have gone away. I can’t imagine shifting gears with the opposite hand. I’m sure there are more if I really thought about it. So back to the doorknobs. Do you use your right hand?

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    1. Yes. I use my right hand as much as a right-handed person in order to adapt. I never learned how to use a stick shift because I couldn’t get my brain to function with the right hand and the left foot. And I never could learn how to knit or crochet for my mom. She ate with her left hand and did everything else with her right hand. So when she tried to teach me knitting, she couldn’t. It’s all backwards. There are so many things that right-handed people don’t even realize are geared toward the-right handed population. It gets to a point where you don’t even think about it anymore. You just use your right hand. I can write upside down and backwards with my right hand, as well as my left. But not cursive. 😊

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  5. I never looked at adapting to a right hand world. I believe in when you’re born a certain way you learn to live with it being left-handed is something that God gives you you shouldn’t have to go around trying to adapt for living in the right handed world. Just be yourself and just look at it as a gift. God knows what he’s doing and that’s all I look at it.

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    1. I definitely think it is a gift. But in some ways, there must be some adaptation because I wouldn’t be able to operate a can opener if I didn’t use my right hand. I’m not as strong in that hand, so I have to adapt. That’s what I mean by adapting. 😊

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  6. I write left-handed and my hand looked like that picture all the way through school. But I think I must be a bit ambidextrous or else just adapted because I didn’t know any other approach. My dad also got the lefthandedness smacked out of him, it he continued as a lefty in sports.

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    1. I feel like I adapted too. I know I’m not ambidextrous, but I can do a fair amount with my right hand because I have to isn’t that crazy how our parents were not be allowed to be left-handed?

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    1. Plus these other guys:

      Eight United States presidents were left-handed: James Garfield, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama

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