Left or Right

[musok]

  xmattxyzx said:

I'm left handed and left footed. In fact, the right side of my body is pretty much useless.

 

i feel the same way like "what the hell do the right hand do?" sometimes i take 5 min of my time just looking at her ehehe

[Sailor Kenshin]

  musok said:

  Renzhe said:

  offscott said:

Its weird because its about 10% of the world is left handed, then shouldn't 10% of this be left handed? It dosn't look like it.

 

FPN members are not a common lot.

 

Other thing that i have problems on, i don't know if other lefties have the same problem, is ... SCISSORS, i just can't cut straight! I know there are lefty-scissors but... most of the times... you don't have a lefty-scissor next to you...

 

 

Oddly enough I usually cut with scissors using my right hand.

[Deirdre]

  tawanda said:

Im a left underwriter. According to the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, underwriters are not true lefties and will often do many other things with their right hand. This is true for me - I write left handed but sew and knit right handed.

 

Interesting. My husband's a left-handed underwriter and he does indeed do a lot of things with his right hand. He's an ambi chopstick user, much to my chaigrin.

[morleron]

Actually, I'm ambidextrous in most things except eating and writing, and, when pressed, I can do those with the wrong hand. I'm old enough that, when I was growing up, a lot of teachers still tried to force everyone to be right-handed. I got lucky and avoided that and was allowed to grow up weird. Other than the fact that some tools designed for right-handed people have tried to kill me a time or two, and the inconvenience of having to use bolt-action rifles designed for right-handers (target shooting is a major hobby of mine), I've gotten along pretty well in a world which, until recently, has done its best to ignore those of us who use the "right" side of our brains.

 

Later,

Ron

[Sailor Kenshin]

  morleron said:

Actually, I'm ambidextrous in most things except eating and writing, and, when pressed, I can do those with the wrong hand. I'm old enough that, when I was growing up, a lot of teachers still tried to force everyone to be right-handed. I got lucky and avoided that and was allowed to grow up weird. Other than the fact that some tools designed for right-handed people have tried to kill me a time or two, and the inconvenience of having to use bolt-action rifles designed for right-handers (target shooting is a major hobby of mine), I've gotten along pretty well in a world which, until recently, has done its best to ignore those of us who use the "right" side of our brains.

 

Later,

Ron

 

 

I see we went to the same school. :roflmho:

[Pink Ink]

  BillTheEditor said:

Nobody is ambidextrous?

There’s no option for multi-dominant either. I write with my right but throw with my left. I use the mouse and trackpad with my right most of the time but, spinning clockwise is a lefty thing to do and I can’t spin counter-clockwise to save my life. I can’t use a toothbrush with my left but I prefer scissors with my left (when they are available). But I wouldn’t consider myself amidextrous at all since some things I do have a really strong preference for.

 

 

 

  KateGladstone said:

Biologists have located the handedness gene. (See below for references.)

 

In humans/chimpanzees/other great apes, it inhabits chromosome 12 —

specifically, a location called 2p12-q11.

 

This gene works in a rather unusual way:

although getting one or two copies of the gene's dominant allele ("R")

produces right-handedness, getting two copies of the gene's recessive

allele ("r") does NOT produce left-handedness —

instead, getting two recessives ("rr") causes random assignment of handedness.

 

"RR" —> a righty

"Rr" —> a righty

"rR" —> a righty

"rr" —> equal odds of becoming a righty or a lefty.

 

Article on the discovery —

http://tinyurl.com/yqtz42

 

Page about some human genes, including this one (first on the page) —

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Omim/getmap.cgi?l139900

 

Gene map for the region of chromosome 12 that contains this gene —

http://tinyurl.com/ypc5lg

 

I just thought you might like to know.

That’s really interesting. Someone once asked me if I had any lefties in my family and, ding, my dad is a lefty. “There you go,” he said, “that’s where lefty tendencies come from.” Now I know what he was talking about. Definitely, I am not an RR.

 

 

 

  ArtW said:

Do you other lefties find it difficult to write with a fine or XF nib pen? For me, I can't use anything finer than a medium - the nib catches on the paper. Us lefties push the pen across the paper rather than pulling it as righties do.

No not really. I use the same 0.3mm pencils and XF pens. I find it helps to have a lighter hand to avoid that snagging.

 

 

 

  konstantinos_d said:

For our research we use the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory to determine the degree of handedness (all left-handers are not equally left-handers, the same stands for right-handers) and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging to determine language lateralization after a series of language tests. Here you can find an example of the Edinburgh Inventory : http://www.cse.yorku.ca/course_archive/200...hInventory.html

I took that test and came out as ambidextrous but… that doesn’t feel right. Again, no option for multi-dominant.

 

 

 

  tawanda said:

Im a left underwriter. According to the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, underwriters are not true lefties and will often do many other things with their right hand. This is true for me - I write left handed but sew and knit right handed.

The book says that hookers or overighters are true 100% lefties in that their brain halves are completely reversed (or something like that. Its been a while since I read it), and they do everything left-handed.

What are your experiences?

Interesting. When I write left, I’m a left underwriter. But then I chose that because the left overhand hook seemed like carpal tunnel syndrome waiting to happen and with a sprained right wrist, I didn’t want another bad wrist. It just made more sense to me. I never really understood left overwriters. Don’t your wrists and hands get cramped?

[Vardigon]

I'm mostly left-handed, and an underwriter. I use my left hand for all fine motor movements, and my right hand for gross motor movements like throwing a baseball.

[Pensee]

  BillTheEditor said:

Nobody is ambidextrous?

 

Don't know... maybe?

 

  morleron said:

Actually, I'm ambidextrous... when I was growing up, a lot of teachers still tried to force everyone to be right-handed. I got lucky and avoided that and was allowed to grow up weird.

Later,

Ron

 

Ambidextrous in everything I can think of except writing. For me, one hand is as good as the other... <shrug>

 

Don't know what that says my brain! I'd probably rather not know! ; )

 

Appalling that quite a few of us who probably would've ended up writing with left hand were told that was somehow *wrong* & made to use other hand!

 

I hope things have changed.

 

Writing & drawing are really the only things I can think of where I don't just use the hand that happens to be the most convenient.

 

So does that make me truly ambidextrous? Don't know. If I write or draw with left hand-- it takes longer, and isn't as good.

 

Sample:

 

 

 

 

[holgalee]

If I'm not wrong, I was 'born' (or at least, was taught to hold the pen with my right hand) a rightie but when in school, I got confused during maths and attempted to do my sums from left to right. Some of my alphabets like Ps, Qs, Bs were inverted too. I figured if I switched to my left hand, things would become right. Not sure whether this story is real or a self-created urban legend! :embarrassed_smile:

 

In school, I was lucky that none of the teachers made me switch hands, though one did straighten my book when I was writing with a 45 degree tilt. I just tilted it back after she walked away! Anyway, I hold chopsitcks with my left hand but my right hand is the stronger one which I use for almost everything else, including scissors, penknife, badminton racket, etc. I'm not ambidextrous though as my right hand's writing is bad.

 

My grandmother was lefthanded but no-one else in my immediate family is and neither are my cousins I think. I call myself a confused lefthander, but I'm happy and proud to be lefthanded! Oh, I'm a left underwriter by the way. Prefer tilting the paper from anywhere between 20 to 90 degrees though, especially when using lined paper.

Edited December 24, 2008 by holgalee

[Nenona]

Lefty!

 

write with my left.

fork in my left, knife in my right.

Archery with right-handed bows.

dual-wield anything else.

hee hee.

 

Apparently it was attempted to get me to switch hands in preschool, but it never took.

And then not getting glasses until I was in 6th grade(when I was supposed to have them in 1st, the doctor said), probably didn't help as well.

I <do> learn different from normal people. I do better watching someone else do something, and then I'm able to copy it. I also read a lot faster than most, and retain it much better.

Which probably has nothing to do with left-handedness.

 

[louie24]

I have always been totally right-handed. My sister was ambidexterous when she was young, but eventually became exclusively a righty.

[MikS]

Born a lefty and learnt to adapt to the right handed world.

cooking, cutting, peeling using teaspoons to measure. anything that requires a light touch is my left.

Using cutelry i can swap freely. My dad used to call me a mollyduka

tennis is left, football is right foot to kick. left foot is almost useless as i almost end up tripping over.

I use right handed sissors in my left hand, just learnt to pull the blades closed when cutting, I can cut a straight line.

Can openers I use lefthanded but cross my hands over.

chopsticks in my left but i can annoy my mates by using my right when they cant even hold them.

Boxing i'm a southpaw but can switch, I attribute boxing to help get coordination and strength and power into my right hand, (got a awesome right hook)

Using tools I can use either but for the fine adjustments i go straight to my left.

my left eye is dominant but I can shoot pistols with either hand. Rifles I shoot lefthanded.

Got burnt a few times with a bolt action ejecting the cartriges onto my forearm.

I borrowed a gentlemans .38 revolver one time at the pistol club (i was thinking about joining up) and it was custom moulded handgrip to his very fat sausagelike fingers. So I had to shoot it righthanded. Did very well and got congratulated then they saw me write with my left hand and asked if I was a lefty, I replied yes I am, They wanted to see me shoot with my left hand after that.

I write with a claw or just go and smudge the words, very messy handwritting, amost the same as a Dr's. My hand ache's after about 5mins of writting so I vary between the two. Sometimes I have tried the underwritting but the backwards slanting letters is wrong was drummed into me in eary schooling.

I can write righthanded but its slow and more wobbly. More practise will make it neater im sure. Patience when writting is virtually non existant as I've gotten to the point of taking notes down as fast as I can before my hand starts to ache.

mouse i use right handed, left is useless with that.

 

In my line of work (service hand on oil rigs) i've come across more left handers than right handers.

 

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,2...281-661,00.html

did the test, I can see her spinning both cw and ccw.... depends on how hard i concentrate.

Edited December 29, 2008 by MikS

[Habibi18]

  johnr55 said:

My sister is ambidextrous, beautiful handwriting with either hand, I can't tell the difference.

 

Any samples?

 

I'm right handed and if I even try to write with my left hand it looks like I've gone back in time to when I was 5 and learning my ABC's and 123's. XD Although I do wish that I was ambidextrous with my handwriting looking the same using both hands.

 

Although I don't see that happening. So.....*sigh* Handwriting/writing is a fetish of mine. I obsess over it all the time. And don't get me started on keeping journals.....I've been doing so since I was 9 and I haven't stopped since. I still have them. I'm 16 now so I have no idea how many journals that is.

 

But then again I've always have loved writing period. And since you guys have posted pictures I couldn't go without posting a sample of mine, I mean what kind of person would that make me?

 

Here you go:

 

Handwriting Sample

 

Incase you're wondering it's something I got from one of the magazines in the mail a few years ago that I wanted. And of course for future reference so I could get more.

 

I like collecting stuff......that's another story.

 

http://s181.photobucket.com/albums/x180/Wapo_Gipo_Frogs88/th_sau22.jpg.gif

[BerneseMtDogEatsArco]

  lisa said:

I'm a lefty.

 

Think it's a bit strange that that wiki link says they are medical causes for lefthandedness. As if, just because more people are righthanded, there's automatically something wrong with lefthandedness. To me handedness is like eyecolour. I'd guess that there are more brown eyed people in the world than green eyed. And no one is looking for the medical cause of green eyedness!

 

 

Actually, (clears throat) green eyes and blue eyes are known to be a deficiency in proteins that produce the colors necessary to add up to brown. Brown is considered the "normal" color, and b/g are "abnormal".

 

That said, I'd willingly trade my "normal" eye color for a nice green!

[Sailor Kenshin]

Try contact lenses!

[GeorgeP]

Well, I'm a green eyed lefty, so I suppose that makes me some sort of freak. Cool!

 

I once worked in an anomaly. I was one of a dozen managers in a large retail setting. 10 of us were left handed. I didn't really think about it at the time, but I wonder now if certain professions are statistically skewed to left/right handedness.

 

That dancer test was very interesting. When the page first loaded, it was very obviously going clockwise to me. After reading you can switch your perspective, I closed my eyes and visualized it. Looked again and voila, she's turning counterclockwise. Interestingly, I CANNOT switch it back, I've been trying for several minutes. Note: After about 5 minutes away from the page, my brain reset itself to clockwise.

 

It's gotten me thinking though. Could this exercise change how I think? In other words, by forcing my brain to view it the other way, would my thought patterns be different for a period of time? If did the excercise regularly, and then journaled, would I perhaps be able to see a difference? It's an experiment I may try. I'd be curious to see if it does, as it implies that I could 'train' myself to think certain ways in certain situations.

[Sailor Kenshin]

We could change your name to Johnny Test.

[Mrs Palmer]

Another green eyed leftie here! Freaks of the world unite!!

 

I used to be able to write very well with my right hand, since I broke my left arm twice in third and fourth grade. They still taught penmanship back then and my teacher said Carry on, even with my right hand, so I did.

I can pitch (softball) left and right, as well as bat, so I thought that made me a better coach.

Now, I have a serious back problem and my right hand shakes sometimes, so I can't write as well with my right hand. It really seems to affect weight bearing and fine motor control (it's a nerve thing) so I don't even try. I don't think it's any natural ambidexterity, I think it comes from being raised by right handers.

Thank heavens I have a few uncles and cousins who are left handed or I never would have learned to tie my shoes. LOL. It was funny that I had to wait for a left handed uncle to come around sometimes to learn to do things, like peel potatoes, or as mentioned, tie my shoes, since my mother gave up. She can't stand to see me - or couldn't stand, I should say, as she passed on a few months ago (see, I forgot, makes me sad) she couldn't stand to see me with a knife in my hands. She always said it looked so awkward and she was always afraid I would cut myself.

Ah, I digress.

Anyway, yeah, cack-handed, that is me.

[WendyNC]

My mother was left-handed, left-brain dominant with blue eyes. My father was right-handed, right brain dominant with green eyes. And what did they get? Right handed, left-brain dominant, with (mostly) brown eyes. In short, I'm a reversion to the mean. However, like the sibling mentioned by another poster upthread, I was a late decider on handedness (and I'm told eye color as well). Although I'm right-handed for most fine motor things and generally right-footed, my left side is far more than just a "helper," the left side of my body is larger than my right and my left arm is stronger (although that may be due to a minor but permanent back injury).

 

Hmmm. Perhaps I should have put this in the introduction thread as it seems to tell much about me.

[AndyH]

Very, very righthanded - I had an injury and rotator cuff surgery during the past year and was just about helpless when the right arm was immobilizd.

 

Oddly enough my father, mother, only brother, and three of four grandparents were southpaws.