Handedness—are you Left or Right-handed?

[Paul Whybrow]

I've been researching handedness recently, as part of the plot of my latest psychological thriller. A dead woman has been found with a blow to her right forehead, which looks to have been struck by a left-handed assailant. The problem for my detective is that the main suspect appears to be right-handed, though he carries a shotgun in the crook of his left arm.

This set me thinking how I use my hands, and whether I only do some things with one hand or the other. I'm right-handed, though strive to be as ambidextrous as possible just for the mental workout. It's reckoned that 10-12% of people are left-handed, and all sorts of sweeping generalisations are made about how this affects creativity or a tendency to be better at the sciences.

By coincidence, an article came in from the Brainpickings site which referred to the writer Maria Popova teaching herself to write with her left hand; it had unexpected benefits for her:

Beyond the tangible satisfaction of mastery painstakingly acquired, the endeavor had one unexpected and rather magical effect — it opened some strange and wonderful conduit through space and time, connecting me to the version of myself who was first learning to read and write as a child in Bulgaria. Generally lacking early childhood memories, I was suddenly electrified by a vividness of being, a vibrantly alive memory of the child’s pride and joy felt in those formative feats of the written word, of wresting boundless universes of meaning from pages filled with lines of squiggly characters.

Intrigued by this, I had a go by compiling a list of descriptive words that I want to include in my WIP. I wrote a few in spidery hand, which I might not have thought of if typing them on the keyboard—probably the most ambidextrous thing most of us do.

For some reason, I use my left hand to operate taps/faucets.

Which hand do you favour?

 

[Marc Joan]

That Popova anecdote is fascinating.

 

[Brian Clegg]

I'm right handed for writing (write handed?) - but like many people my handedness is not consistent in all activities. I find it much more natural, for example, to throw a ball with the left hand (though I'm hopeless with either).

 

[Patricia D]

I started out leaning left but my teachers encouraged a movement to the right, and now I do most things with my right hand, unless it's more convenient to reach down, out, up, whatever with my left. I like the idea of teaching myself to write left-handed - anything to avoid what I should be doing.

 

[Patricia D]

The statistics on that TED talk confused me. Of the possible combinations of parental handedness, one results in ten percent left-handed offpsring, and all others produce a significantly larger percent left-handed offspring BUT it said that ten percent of the human population is left-handed, a ratio that has persisted for half a million years. How can this be?

 

[Paul Whybrow]

The statistics on that TED talk confused me. Of the possible combinations of parental handedness, one results in ten percent left-handed offpsring, and all others produce a significantly larger percent left-handed offspring BUT it said that ten percent of the human population is left-handed, a ratio that has persisted for half a million years. How can this be?

Mark Twain popularised a phrase that covers anything to do with statistics:

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."

 

[KG Christopher]

There are three types of people in the world, those who can count and those who cannot.

I am ambidextrous in most areas. But I cannot spell for toffee.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

I'm a southpaw, but living in a right-handed world, I naturally do some things right handed. For example, there were no left-handed scissors in my primary school, so I use a scissors right-handed. Also, most power tools (belt sanders, drill presses, band saws, etc, etc.), and musical instruments are right-handed, so I've always favoured the right hand in those areas, too. Ambidexterity served me well in Peace Corps--the only way I could keep up with the Panamanians when clearing a new field was to use my machete with my right hand when my left got tired.

 

[Boopadoo]

I write right-handed, use most tools and scissors right handed, play guitars right handed, but play hockey left-handed. I do precision things and cook ambidextrously, except when using knives - knives are always in the right hand. Though my right arm and hand are definitely stronger and steadier, my left arm is more flexible (bending and reach).

 

[Chase Gamwell]

I'm ridiculously right handed. While I have no trouble using both hands for tasks that require it, when I have a choice, I usually wind up using just my right hand for stuff. Never really considered my handedness it until this post prompted me to actually think about it...

 

[echo.]

I'm right-handed, right-footed. Try anything else and it's a spider-scrawl and a goal in the wrong net. My father, however, is right-handed and left-footed, but he fires a rifle with the left, knocks a coconut off the coconut shy with a left. And by God did he used to win us those coconuts. Apart from one time he got too cocky and said 'Which one do you want?' before proceeding to fire it into the attendant's face with the force of a thousand galloping gazelles. Don't think we ever went to the fete again. Too much blood.

Anyway the point of this was that you can write with one arm and shoot with another, according to the Fatherland.