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The surprising geography of American left-handedness (2015)

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Re: The surprising geography of American left-handedness (2015)

#21

Post by coderenegade »

bradley13 wrote: post #14

My parents "retrained" me to be right-handed. All primary-school things like writing, using scissors, etc. I do right-handed. For the rest? All I am is confused - some things I do right-handed, others left-handed. FWIW I was a very awkward and uncoordinated kid, which...may be related?

Plenty of us righties out there like this. I write, catch, throw, kick etc. as a right hander, but surf, play the drums, jump etc. like a left hander. When I learned to box as a teenager I settled for orthodox, but it could have gone either way. Never had a problem with coordination.

I think it's genetic, and probably a spectrum. My mom's family has a few lefties, and a number of righties that play traditionally left handed positions in team sports.

Re: The surprising geography of American left-handedness (2015)

#22

Post by labster »

bchris4 wrote: post #11

The areas with higher rates of left handedness on the map seem to correlate to the more progressive areas where you’d expect parents and teachers to not discourage it. Was kind of surprised they didn’t mention that, given they started with that anecdote.

Or in other words, educators in red states are more effective in suppressing sinister tendencies in children.

Re: The surprising geography of American left-handedness (2015)

#23

Post by cperciva »

labster wrote: post #22
bchris4 wrote: post #11

The areas with higher rates of left handedness on the map seem to correlate to the more progressive areas where you’d expect parents and teachers to not discourage it. Was kind of surprised they didn’t mention that, given they started with that anecdote.

Or in other words, educators in red states are more effective in suppressing sinister tendencies in children.

To the people downvoting labster's comment: He's making a joke about left-handedness being referred to as "sinister" due to the Latin origins (apparently this may originate from how Romans wore their togas). He's not saying that teachers are making children any less evil.

Re: The surprising geography of American left-handedness (2015)

#24

Post by skulk »

bradley13 wrote: post #14

My parents "retrained" me to be right-handed. All primary-school things like writing, using scissors, etc. I do right-handed. For the rest? All I am is confused - some things I do right-handed, others left-handed. FWIW I was a very awkward and uncoordinated kid, which...may be related?

Same for me, but in the opposite direction. I had a revelation a few years ago that this is probably why I mix up left and right more than what seems like normal.

Re: The surprising geography of American left-handedness (2015)

#25

Post by sunrunner »

kazinator wrote: post #19

Why is it that right-handed people play stringed instruments such that the strings are actuated with the right hand (finger picking, flatpicking, strumming, bowing), and fingered with the left? Many left handed players reverse the arrangement. On the other hand (pun inteneded) left-handed pianos are almost unheard of.

Clearly it's to stop right-handed players from 'cheating' their way through Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand.

Re: The surprising geography of American left-handedness (2015)

#26

Post by djexjms »

cperciva wrote: post #23
labster wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or in other words, educators in red states are more effective in suppressing sinister tendencies in children.

To the people downvoting labster's comment: He's making a joke about left-handedness being referred to as "sinister" due to the Latin origins (apparently this may originate from how Romans wore their togas). He's not saying that teachers are making children any less evil.

Wait a minute, that doesn't sound right.

Re: The surprising geography of American left-handedness (2015)

#27

Post by rob74 »

labster wrote: post #22
bchris4 wrote: post #11

The areas with higher rates of left handedness on the map seem to correlate to the more progressive areas where you’d expect parents and teachers to not discourage it. Was kind of surprised they didn’t mention that, given they started with that anecdote.

Or in other words, educators in red states are more effective in suppressing sinister tendencies in children.

Yeah, the side of the political spectrum associated with the color red in the US (which is actually used for the other side in pretty much all of the rest of the world AFAIK) is usually referred to as "right-wing", so they of course think that nothing having to do with left can be good...

Re: The surprising geography of American left-handedness (2015)

#28

Post by rob74 »

djexjms wrote: post #26
cperciva wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the people downvoting labster's comment: He's making a joke about left-handedness being referred to as "sinister" due to the Latin origins (apparently this may originate from how Romans wore their togas). He's not saying that teachers are making children any less evil.

Wait a minute, that doesn't sound right.

Yeah, if you think about it, this is a "discrimination" deeply enbedded in pretty much every language - or at least languages with European roots, not sure about others: "right" always has positive connotations (being right, human rights, words like "dexterity" etc.) while "left" has negative ones (not as often, but often enough, like the "sinister" mentioned by the other comment).

Re: The surprising geography of American left-handedness (2015)

#29

Post by dspillett »

bradley13 wrote: post #14

My parents "retrained" me to be right-handed. All primary-school things like writing, using scissors, etc. I do right-handed. For the rest? All I am is confused - some things I do right-handed, others left-handed. FWIW I was a very awkward and uncoordinated kid, which...may be related?

I do many things in what is considered the right-handed way, but others the left way. I do a bit or martial arts (badly, but I enjoy it) and there are some things that work better for me the left-handed way there too. For a few things I'm just as good with either hand.

I think I was destined to be ambidextrous (well, ambiUNdextrous!) as I used to write the left side of the page with my left and switch over, and you'd be hard-pressed to spot where the change had happened. If teachers encouraged me to pick a side, the quality of my writing dropped on the other side of the page. I only started to favour the right when my eyes started going “properly funny” (I have a couple of faults there which interact in interesting ways) which meant to be comfortable I tended to turn what I was writing on clockwise (which made writing with the left much less comfortable/practical).

> I was a very awkward and uncoordinated kid

Same. And no different as an adult! (even worse now I get recurring vertigo…)

In my case I think it is largely due to my eyes though: my assumption being that because the faults with them changed a lot at the same time I was developing & growing generally, my body/brain were a bit hindered wrt working out the hand-eye coordination and general proprioception businesses.

One interesting note is that mix-handedness is more common than you might think, and it can confer an advantage in some sports and other areas just as full ambidextrousness can: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-dominance

Re: The surprising geography of American left-handedness (2015)

#30

Post by kenhwang »

kazinator wrote: post #19

Why is it that right-handed people play stringed instruments such that the strings are actuated with the right hand (finger picking, flatpicking, strumming, bowing), and fingered with the left? Many left handed players reverse the arrangement. On the other hand (pun inteneded) left-handed pianos are almost unheard of.

String actuation requires much finer and varied motor skills than simply pressing down on the string. There's many strengths and directions in how a string can be plucked or bowed or strummed and it changes how it sounds, but pressing down on the string is pretty on/off binary.
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