Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The mystery of why left-handers are so much rarer (2016)

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 286 posts

Re: The mystery of why left-handers are so much rarer (2016)

#211

Post by 01acheru »

nottorp wrote: post #208

Curious: any people around who trained themselves to do fine control activities (writing but not only) with their non dominant hand? How did that go? Being forced in school or because of an accident doesn't count; curious if anyone did it on their own, voluntarily.

My father did it when he was a child so he could "be like his brother" who was 1.5 year older and the favorite son of his mother (this brother was the first male son after a female who was the first overall).

He is now right handed for almost everything but really skilled with the left hand, I remember that once he broke the right wrist and could easily write with the left hand for example.

Re: The mystery of why left-handers are so much rarer (2016)

#212

Post by niccl »

gitaarik wrote: post #166
niccl wrote: post #147

Curiously, almost every lighting control desk I've ever seen or heard about is left handed: the faders for controlling the lights are almost invariably on the left.

So what makes that left-handed? Is there nothing on the right side?

It's typically buttons and programming stuff on the right. So you could argue that it's right handed because the keyboard stuff is on the right. But when you're running a show, it's the faders you need, and need to manipulate accurately and carefully, not the programming stuff. If they were for people who were most used to manipulating things accurately with their right hand, then I think the faders would be on the right.

So I guess it's a long winded way of saying that it seems as though most lighting operators are fundamentally left-handed, which is quite .. curious? I don't know what the right word is

Re: The mystery of why left-handers are so much rarer (2016)

#213

Post by sova »

greedylizard wrote: post #152
pram wrote: post #139

Just throwing in my left handed anecdote here: the bottom of my hand was always covered in pencil graphite when I was in school because your hand drags over what you've been writing from left -> right. Also ring binders were a pain in the ass (your hand is blocked at the left margin lol)

As a child I solved this problem by rotating my paper 90° to the right and writing “down”. Still do it til this day. Although it gets awkward when someone wants to hold the paper for me while I sign. I have to gently tug it away from them so I can turn it.

You can write "down" with your left because immediately above your hand on the page there's no hand to "drag behind." I had to think about your sentence for a while. (It might just mean I'm not very bright.)

Re: The mystery of why left-handers are so much rarer (2016)

#214

Post by n4r9 »

istultus wrote: post #93
n4r9 wrote: post #47

The percentage of left-handedness correlates strongly with how pacifist vs warlike the society is. According to this 2005 study it varies from 3% up to 27%: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1634940/

This has to take the cake for "most spurious correlation." The most coherent reading is "places which report more homocide data are correlated with reporting more left-handedness"

I believe the accepted explanation is that southpaws have more of an advantage the rarer they are. So there's a balancing effect in violent societies.

Re: The mystery of why left-handers are so much rarer (2016)

#215

Post by n4r9 »

Melatonic wrote: post #111
n4r9 wrote: post #47

The percentage of left-handedness correlates strongly with how pacifist vs warlike the society is. According to this 2005 study it varies from 3% up to 27%: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1634940/

It could also be that when fighting (pre guns) people with left handed weapons took normal right handers off guard (sort of like how in baseball a leftie might throw off other players). I can imagine in a sword battle if you are used to fighting people right handing swords that suddenly fighting a left handed person could be unexpected and disadvantage you. Where I am going with this is that it might not be that left…

This is the explanation I know of. And I didn't mean to suggest anything else in my post!

Re: The mystery of why left-handers are so much rarer (2016)

#216

Post by ccppurcell »

zdragnar wrote: post #51

I write left handed, and use a fork in my left and knife in my right. Left hand for holding a phone or a drinking glass, and for shaving. I'm right eye dominant, though, so I throw, swing, shoot, use scissors, play instruments and use a mouse right handed. I'm not at all ambidextrous, I can't do most of those things with my other hand.

Anything I didn't have to be taught to do, I do with my left hand or the left handed way. Opening bottles etc. But I write and play sports/musical instruments with my right hand.

With a bit of practise I can write neatly with my left but it's a bit slower. I started using a computer mouse with my left hand so that I could put a notepad just to the right of the keyboard and not compete for space with the mouse.

Re: The mystery of why left-handers are so much rarer (2016)

#217

Post by fiftyacorn »

pram wrote: post #139

Just throwing in my left handed anecdote here: the bottom of my hand was always covered in pencil graphite when I was in school because your hand drags over what you've been writing from left -> right. Also ring binders were a pain in the ass (your hand is blocked at the left margin lol)

This was one of the reasons kids werent allowed to be left handed in the old days - you used fountain pens so it would smudge the ink

Re: The mystery of why left-handers are so much rarer (2016)

#218

Post by voidUpdate »

solfox wrote: post #137

If you're a Waldorf fan, you might be interested to learn that Steiner was against left-handedness, thinking it caused by a spiritual deficiency. Modern Waldorf schools actively "correct" left handedness because of this. [1] [1]: https://waldorfcritics.org/faq/

Mine didn't...

Re: The mystery of why left-handers are so much rarer (2016)

#219

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

Tor3 wrote: post #202
michaelteter wrote: post #160

I'm sure like many left-handers here, my right hand is nearly as dexterous as my left. Writing is the only thing I can do with left which I cannot do with right; other tasks are either equally natural or just a little awkward but still effective. But some right-handers who have been forced to (by breaking an arm for example) can learn to write with the left hand. I have to assume they could learn to be more ambidexte…

I'm the same, just mirrored.. I'm technically right-handed, but my left hand works as well as the right one for stuff that I haven't exclusively trained my right hand to do (or the left one, for that matter, as far as the right hand is concerned). So I can't write with my left hand (except that I can mirror-write, especially if I write with my right hand at the same time. Apparently Leonardo Da Vinci used his left ha…

I'm also like that. When I was a child (not sure what age), I would take two pencils and write one line with the left hand, and the next with the right, indistinctly. But my school teachers said I should choose one and stick to it (not sure if that would still be advised today). I really had no preference so my mother advised me to choose the right, as it would give me less trouble due to everything being designed for right-handers, etc. A reasonable advice.

I did so, and now I wouldn't be able to write with my left hand, but when I take up a new activity, it's still basically arbitrary. For example, I started playing golf recently, and I deliberately chose the right-handed way for the same reasons as for writing (it's easier to find right-handed clubs, etc.) but I could have chosen the opposite and I suppose my skill would be the same, initially there is no option that looks more "natural" than the other for my body. And with trivial things where I didn't choose consciously, sometimes I'm told I do them as a left-hander, e.g. I stir tea counterclockwise.

I'm a fountain pen aficionado and I would have liked my son to enjoy my fountain pens someday, but he's a clear left-hander, so he probably won't :)

Re: The mystery of why left-handers are so much rarer (2016)

#220

Post by voidUpdate »

Miraltar wrote: post #36
pclmulqdq wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why people have started to make reversed musical instruments. I saw a video with a reversed piano, calling it "left-handed." I am a left-handed person who plays the piano and I had always thought the keyboard was laid out like an ascending scale on paper rather than having something to do with handedness - low notes on the left and high notes on the right. The motions involved in playing music are so wei…

I don't think it matters too much on a piano but on a guitar it does a lot because your hands do very different things.

I play a right handed ukulele left handed (neck in my right hand, strumming with the left hand, but strung normally). Since the body is symmetrical, and I learnt like that from the start, I've not really had an issue. Plus, it means I can pick up and play any old ukulele without having to re-string it first. However this doesn't work for something like an electric guitar which you cant really play "upside down"
Post reply on HN