Handedness

righty

I'm a righty.

My writing with my left hand is awful.

Left. And sinister with it.

Righty, married to a lefty, and quite suspicious of the sinister side...

I'm a proud lefty.

Lefty and leftist, both.

It's worth noting that five of our last seven U.S. Presidents have been left-handed: Ford, Reagan, Bush41, Clinton and Obama. Only Carter and Bush43 have been righties during that span.

caw

Southpaw here, everything but shooting a gun (my teacher taught me to shoot right handed and I do--or did, it's been years--okay with that).

How come the poll shows almost equal (7 and 8 at this time) when the world is 90 to 95 percent right handed?

I'm right-handed, but I tend to associate left-handedness with creativity. I don't know why, but I think there is a connection, and I would expect more lefties among poets and artists than in the general population.

The left hand goes to the right brain, which is the artist part, correct?

Here's a quote from a 1980 study:
At each age level, left-handed students had higher creativity scores than right-handers. ........ Peterson and Lansky found that the proportion of left-handed students in an architectural college increased until it was twice the national average by the sixth year of study, and that the faculty had almost four times the number of left-handers expected from a normal population.
("A Note on Change in Creativity by Handedness over a Maturational Time Period," Cynthia A. Stewart and Dennis Clayson)

And this:
A 2007 paper in Journal of Mental and Nervous Disease (Vol. 195, No. 10) found that musicians, painters and writers were significantly more likely to be left-handed than control participants.
(http://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/01/brain.html)

An interesting anecdote: My parents had three children: a girl and two boys. The girl is right handed, and the two boys are left handed. My brother had two sons--both left handed. I had a boy and a girl. The boy is left handed, the girl right handed. So of the children and grandchildren of my parents the two girls are righties and the five men are lefties. But get this, my daughter married a left handed man. Good on her! Now it's six lefties in the family. Now, their son, my grandson, is...it's too early to tell. I'll watch him closely at Thanksgiving.

DAT
P.S. I've never really bought all that left brain/right brain stuff. But then, I've never looked closely at it.

I'm gauche as well.

Apparently we're called "mollydookers" down here, but I've never heard anyone actually use the word.

Colin Fiat said:

I was beginning to wonder the same thing. Not what I had expected at all. My expectation was to have very few lefties, not only due to a common average but also because of the logic/emotion left/right brain split.

C.F.

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Maybe it's because lefties are more likely to bother answering the poll, whereas righties, being in the norm, don't feel compelled to register their opinions?

Having said that, you've outed a very kick-ass list of left-handed poets here...

Norman D Gutter said:

An interesting anecdote: My parents had three children: a girl and two boys. The girl is right handed, and the two boys are left handed. My brother had two sons--both left handed. I had a boy and a girl. The boy is left handed, the girl right handed. So of the children and grandchildren of my parents the two girls are righties and the five men are lefties. But get this, my daughter married a left handed man. Good on her! Now it's six lefties in the family. Now, their son, my grandson, is...it's too early to tell. I'll watch him closely at Thanksgiving.

DAT
P.S. I've never really bought all that left brain/right brain stuff. But then, I've never looked closely at it.

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Dang, Norman - how do you manage the softball games at family picnics? How many first basemen can you have on one team?

oh my god they're closing in, quick! give them some right-handed power tools!

Feiss said:

righty

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freak

Ambidextrous, but dominantly left. I write left-handed, can go right if I need to (ie, when my left arm was in a sling for 3 weeks). Can't use left-handed scissors or can openers, though.

Really pisses people off when I bowl because I can switch back and forth with ease (handy - so to speak - for picking up spares). Also confuses the hell out of softball pitchers when I bat because I'll switch from one pitch to the next. I have to have two fencing foils (one right-handed, one left), shoot with either hand, etc.

I can do most things (besides writing) equally well (or poorly) with both hands, but generally gravitate towards left-handed, so...LEFTY POWER!

So I'm a right handed bearded lady, that doesn't mean I'm a freak

blacbird said:

It's worth noting that five of our last seven U.S. Presidents have been left-handed: Ford, Reagan, Bush41, Clinton and Obama. Only Carter and Bush43 have been righties during that span.

caw

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I'm not sure what the significance of this is, other than that I'm damn proud to be a righty!

Righty for me.

Feiss said:

So I'm a right handed bearded lady, that doesn't mean I'm a freak

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Nope, that's just the freaky icing on the freaky cake.

she's superfreakinggggggggyowwwwwwwwwww

I'm right-handed but left-handed when I *tried* to play the guitar. Does that count?

You like doing things the hard way then, eh? Lefties have ridiculously limited choice in guitars compared to righties... as I've experienced first, er, hand...

I think Hendrix was also a right-handed left-hand guitarist.