Left-handed

People who are left-handed are more dextrous with their left hand than with their right hand: they will probably also use their left hand for tasks such as personal care, cooking, and so on. Writing is not as good an indicator of handedness as it might seem, because many people who write with their right hand use their left for everything else.

Social stigma and repression of left-handedness

Linguistic suggestion

Some left-handed people consider themselves oppressed, even to the point of prejudice. Etymology often lends weight to the argument:

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In many European languages, "right" (German: recht; French: droit) stands for authority and justice; and being right-handed is being skillful: the Latin word for right-handed is dexter, as in dexterity; the Spanish diestro also means skillful.

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On the other hand, the English word "sinister" comes from Latin, where it means simply "left". The modern Italian sinistra has both meanings of sinister and left. The Spanish siniestra has both, too, although the second meaning is less common. A left-hander was supposed not only to be unlucky, but also awkward and clumsy, as shown in the French gauche and German linkisch. As these are all very old words, they support theories indicating that the predominance of right-handedness is an extremely old phenomenon.

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In ancient China, the left has been the "bad" side. The adjective "left" (? Mandarin: zuo) means "improper", "out of accord"; for instance, the phrase "left path" (?? mandarin: zuodao) stands for illegal or immoral means.

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Even the word "ambidexterity" reflects the bias. Its intended meaning is "skillful at both sides". However, since it keeps the Latin root dext, which means right, it ends up conveying the idea of being "right-handed at both sides".

Related Topics:
Ambidexterity - Latin

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Daily suppression

In many parts of the world, right-handed people consider it impolite to eat with the left hand. Until the latter part of the twentieth century, Roman Catholic nuns in American elementary schools (and possibly elsewhere, for example Dutch primary schools) would punish children for using their left hand to write, typically by slapping their left hand with a ruler if they attempted to pick up a pen with it.

Related Topics:
Roman Catholic - American - Elementary school

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Left-handedness was often interpreted as a sign of Satanic influence, and thus prohibited. The Eskimos also believed that every left-handed person was a sorcerer.

Related Topics:
Satan - Eskimo

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The use of left hand was also frowned upon in Asia. Allegedly, though there were few examples of its happening, a Japanese man could once divorce his wife if he discovered that she was left-handed.

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Until very recently in Chinese societies, left-handed people were strongly encouraged to switch to being right-handed. However, this may be in part because, while Latin characters are equally easy to write with either hand, it is more difficult to write legible Chinese characters with the left hand. The prescribed direction of writing each line of a Chinese character is designed for the movements of the right hand, and some shapes tend to feel awkward to follow with the left hand's fingers. It results in a less soft writing than it would be with the right hand.

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Until recently left-handed children in parts of Africa would have their left hand covered in boiling water. The hand was then buried in mud until all the nerves were killed, thus forcing the child to be right handed.

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Despite the suppression, there have been, however, many famous left-handed people, and the associated right brain hemisphere that is said to be more active in left-handed people has been found in some circumstances to be associated with genius and is correlated with artistic and visual skill. As visual thinking is much promoted nowadays, left-handers cannot help but begin to gain more and more respect. As well, in certain fields, left-handedness is advantageous; for example, in baseball, it is commonly known that a left-handed pitcher is harder to to hit against successfully.

Related Topics:
Famous left-handed people - Genius - Visual thinking - Baseball - Left-handed - Pitcher

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