Are you left or right handed?

[AMLinington]

Goodness, it went on much more recently than that- some friends of mine who are in their early sixties were forced to use their right hands even though they are obviously left-handed. @SiliconAlley_Sam I wonder if you write right-handed because you saw almost everyone else doing it? mrwITch writes with his right hand but does everything else left-handed - using a screwdriver, holding a squash racquet, picking up heavy weights etc. He says he doesn't remember being told that he should use his right hand.

My daughter in law is a reception teacher and she tells me that children can sometimes take a whole year or more to decide which hand they are going to write with.

I can write with my left hand and I wear my watch on the "wrong" wrist for a right-hander. My sister can write equally badly with either hand..she always says she is no-dextrous

 

Yes, my Father was forced to write with his right hand (and he's 65) and now he can only write in block capitals.

 

In the late 80's as a solidly unrepentant left hander (although I use a mouse with my right and can be considered ambidextrous in many things) I was put in a remedial writing class at school because I was left handed. Not because I had trouble reading or because I needed support, but simply because I was a left hander and they considered it a learning difficulty. I hated it and was miserable because the 'right handed' exercises we had to do had me forming letters the wrong way. If I have a left handed child I'll come down on the school like a tonne of bricks if they try to force him or her to do exercises based around right handed media.

 

On the plus side, I can write (and read) fluently in mirror image.

 

I have a theory on the whole 'Ambidextrous' thing - as a society we are still 'favouring' Right handedness - everywhere you look things are set up by default as 'right handed' - computers, mice, scissors, spiral bound notebooks, etc. Which means that Left Handers naturally have to BECOME ambidextrous in order to function. If there were an equal amount of left handed tools available (like scissors for example, or can openers) you'd probably find less ambidextrous left handers. I think we are simply 'coping' with the way the world is.

[visioN]

When my Great Aunt was at school before WW1, she was naturally left handed but at school was made to write with her right hand.

 

This happened to my sister in the 90's... dinner ladies making her eat right handed when she was left handed! Didn't go down well with mother!

[SiliconAlley_Sam]

My primary school and Dad used to try to force me to eat right handed but to no avail. Apparently because I wrote with my right hand I had no excuse to not eat "the right way".

[AMLinington]

My primary school and Dad used to try to force me to eat right handed but to no avail. Apparently because I wrote with my right hand I had no excuse to not eat "the right way".

 

I don't recall eating any differently - I've always held my utensils the 'Right handed way'. I don't really understand how it benefits left handers to hold the Knife in the left hand. I hold my fork in my left hand because the fork is the one that is doing the lifting and manipulating of the food - the knife just cuts it. I hold my soup and dessert spoons in my left hand too. Essentially, anything that requires fine motor skills I do with my left hand (although ironically I'm WAY better at using a mouse with my right hand and I even have a trackball mouse) so I really don't understand why Left handers would find holding the fork in their right hand easier as the fork is the one needing the finer motor skills isn't it?

[kearton]

I don't recall eating any differently - I've always held my utensils the 'Right handed way'. I don't really understand how it benefits left handers to hold the Knife in the left hand. I hold my fork in my left hand because the fork is the one that is doing the lifting and manipulating of the food - the knife just cuts it. I hold my soup and dessert spoons in my left hand too. Essentially, anything that requires fine motor skills I do with my left hand (although ironically I'm WAY better at using a mouse with my right hand and I even have a trackball mouse) so I really don't understand why Left handers would find holding the fork in their right hand easier as the fork is the one needing the finer motor skills isn't it?

snap!!

[Heebeejeebee]

Ambidextrous here too.

 

Can do everything with my right hand that I can do with the left but write with my left and wear a watch on my left wrist. Mouse on the right but have no issues with it on the left - just the way my desk is laid out

 

When I was at school I clearly remember being told (nearly forced) to write with my right hand but for a while ended up writing with my left hand for the left page then swapping to my right hand for the right page. Ended up settling for left but not consciously.

 

I very often switch hands to finish a job. I did a plastering course at my local college recently and was driving the instructor mad because I'd change hands halfway through skimming. Seemed to be ok though - which he also couldn't get a grasp on.

 

HBJB

[TwoZeroAlpha]

On the plus side, I can write (and read) fluently in mirror image.

 

Can't do the writing bit but can read as fast as normal both upside down and mirrored. I've met plenty of right handers who can just about do it, but seems to be mostly lefties who can do it with ease.

[AMLinington]

Can't do the writing bit but can read as fast as normal both upside down and mirrored. I've met plenty of right handers who can just about do it, but seems to be mostly lefties who can do it with ease.

 

Yeah upside down is straightforward too. When I was at University doing my PGCE we had a 'professional themes' session on Dyslexia (it was mixed disciplines so not just the Science lot) and the instructor put up a slide with a Shakeperian Sonnet in Mirror image and did a round robin around the table asking people to try to read it out loud. He used this as an example of how difficult and frustrating it was for Dyslexic pupils to have to decipher the words they are reading and to illustrate how daunting round-robin reading was. I think he also used it to point out the difficulties pupils who've learned to read and write languages that read right to left (such as arabic) face when learning English. When it came to me I just read it fluently and it wasn't difficult at all. I think this is part of the differences between how left and right handers process information. I'd be interested to see some statistics comparing instances of left and right handedness in pupils with Dyslexia and Dyscalculia as I wonder if there is genuinely a difference in the way Left and Right handed peoples brains interpret visual stimulus. LeBoyfriend is a Dyslexic (Right hander just fyi) and often he will literally not be able to see that a word is written if it is written backwards/mirrored or is upside down. He tells me that it is just a pattern to him and he can't identify it as a word at all. Although he is excellent at Scrabble because he says he's used to unscrambling words.

[SYNACK]

:'( and me just a lowly right hander who can only read upside down with some effort. Its all the blood rushing to my head that's the problem really, plus getting upside down to read for starters

[mac_shinobi]

I don't recall eating any differently - I've always held my utensils the 'Right handed way'. I don't really understand how it benefits left handers to hold the Knife in the left hand. I hold my fork in my left hand because the fork is the one that is doing the lifting and manipulating of the food - the knife just cuts it. I hold my soup and dessert spoons in my left hand too. Essentially, anything that requires fine motor skills I do with my left hand (although ironically I'm WAY better at using a mouse with my right hand and I even have a trackball mouse) so I really don't understand why Left handers would find holding the fork in their right hand easier as the fork is the one needing the finer motor skills isn't it?

 

Eating soup / ice cream etc I use my right hand to hold the spoon and use my left hand to hold the bowl or pot / tub etc

[davethetekkie]

I'm left-handed but I'm not allowed to vote on the poll... I call shenanigans!

[GPT123]

I was "taught" to write with my right hand at school in the mid 70's, but have never been able to write neatly. Some things I can only do left handed (eg using a shovel), some things with either hand, but I predominantly use my right hand as that is how I have been taught to do things. My daughter is proud leftie though.

[kearton]

Just under 16% of 76 voters are lefties... keep the votes coming peeps!!

[xenonive]

Left handed here but use my computer at work with mouse setup for right handed because if someone right handed needed to use my computer they just got too confused .

[localzuk]

Right handed for everything but firing a rifle, which I discovered a couple of years ago - but that's down to my eyes.

 

Its probably a good thing that I'm right handed actually, as my left hand was severely weakened during my childhood through an accident, to the extent I'm missing a couple of knuckles and a lump of bone on the left side.

Edited August 1, 2014 by localzuk

[VeryPC]

Sooper-dooper right handed myself - can't do anything tricky with my left hand.

 

I blame this for never being able to get any good at guitar (the real reason is probably just impatience though).

 

Al

[Earthling]

I'm so right-dominant that my left hand might as well belong to someone else.

 

About the only thing I can do well with my left hand is hold down a SHIFT key.

[kearton]

16.85% from 89 Edugeekers. Huzzah!

[MrMat]

Righty reporting in!

 

Right handed for everything generally except for eating. I eat like a left handed person for whatever reason.

[Domino]

The average number of people in the world is approx. 10%,

 

...whut?

[kearton]

...whut?

LMAO! Can't believe I didn't spot that when I wrote it. Obviously talking about the number of lefties...

[Norphy]

Doesn't really clarify the statement very much. Better to say something like "Around 10% of the world's population is left handed". I'm not 10% left handed, I'm completely right handed

[ninjashadow]

Right Handed here

[kearton]

I saw another thread this morning with a Tech mentioning being left handed so I thought I'd try and resurrect this old thread in case some people hadn't yet voted...

[kearton]

Just had our 100th voter. Thanks peeps!