Community Chat

[Bridgegal]

I eat and write left handed and a couple of other things but use my right hand/leg for everything else including all sports. When I wore a watch it was on my left hand and I can write right handed on a black/whiteboard but not easily on paper. 

My sister however, is 100% left handed.

[Kitlynn]

i actually use both hands. I think I am right handed but I do a lot of things left handed and when my right hand gets tired I just switch hands. I also can write with both hands. I don't have great penmanship with either one! LOL I have always done that as long as I can remember. I never really think about it unless someone brings it up or like when seeing your post. The only one thing I have found that feels odd to me when I use my left hand is brushing my teeth. Although I still do it sometimes.

[itiswhatitis]

My son is left handed.  He's always been that way and thank goodness no stupid teacher tried to make him a right handed.  He is what he is and he's fine with it.

[howwhatwhen]

Yes, I use my right hand mostly but I deal cards and shoot pool left handed, among other things. Oh I also open jars with my left hand.

[mstyrion 1]

Like many lefties I am at least partially ambidextrous.

I write only lefty but I do many things with my right hand too.

I can eat with either. I throw underhand lefty and overhand righty.

I switch hands when applying makeup. Left hand for left eye, right hand for right eye.

I taught myself to use the computer mouse with my right hand so I could write with my left at the same time.

[Mominohio]

I'm not at all.

But it would be 'handy' to be so!

[itiswhatitis]

Here's at least one THEORY that explains the prominence of right handed-ness in our society.  Can't say it's factual because I have not done a qualitative analysis of any of this information.

I'm providing it as a point for discussion (even in the face of ambiguity).

Most humans (say 70 percent to 95 percent) are right-handed, a minority (say 5 percent to 30 percent) are left-handed, and an indeterminate number of people are probably best described as ambidextrous. This appears to be universally true for all human populations anywhere in the world. There is evidence for genetic influence for handedness; however, it is non-Mendelian and geneticists cannot agree on the exact process. There is evidence that handedness can be influenced (and changed) by social and cultural mechanisms. For instance, teachers have been known to force children to switch from using their left hand to using their right hand for writing. Also, some more restrictive societies show less left-handedness in their populations than other more permissive societies.

Some researchers argue there is evidence for cases of "pathological" left-handedness related to brain trauma during birth. And many researchers trace the cause of handedness back to pre-natal, interuterine developmental processes, back to the time when the fetal brain is first developing distinct cerebral hemispheres. In the 1860s the French surgeon Paul Broca noted a relationship between right-handedness and left-hemispheric brain specialization for language abilities. But the hand-brain association is neither a simple, nor reliable, correlation. Studies conducted in the 1970s showed that most left-handers have the same left-hemispheric brain specialization for language typical of all humans--only a portion of left-handers have different patterns of language specialization.

So the bottom line is, we have a good general idea of the causes of right-handedness in human populations, but we have yet to work out the precise details, including why the direction is right instead of left.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-are-more-people-right/

[Pook]

I am for most things except scissors.  I am right handed but can write equally well with both hands and can also write forward in one hand and at the same time backwards with the other.  I was in my 20's when I discovered that I could write with my left hand as well as my right.  A coworker had a broken right hand and was trying to write with her left hand and I tried it and it was easy for me.

[itiswhatitis]

---

@Pook wrote:

I am for most things except scissors.  I am right handed but can write equally well with both hands and can also write forward in one hand and at the same time backwards with the other.  I was in my 20's when I discovered that I could write with my left hand as well as my right.  A coworker had a broken right hand and was trying to write with her left hand and I tried it and it was easy for me.

---

How nice.  I just had to ask my son how well he can he use his right hand and he said minimally.  That applies to me too with my left hand.  

[Sooner]

Yes!  I can write with either hand, play golf either side, and write with both hands at once left going backwards and right going to the write.  I used to frustrate my teachers with it!  LOL!!  Or I would write answers backwards. . . 

And apparently most people start walking with their right foot. . . doesn't matter to me which one.  That used to upset my band director!