Before you jump to conclusions and question my sanity, let me tell you, that there are so many impediments of being a lefty that even I, being one, was traumatized, and its not limited to uncomplicated issues of tables or scissors it has roots in the very language you speak, read and write.
Physical constraints
You might know that lefties have immense difficulties in writing on those one handed desk-cum-chairs. If you have a left-handed friend, you might have seen her twisting in weird ways to write on one of those. Normal scissors are made for righties, the ones with the finger and thumbholes, try them with your left and you’ll know.
Even the script we write in, English, is written left to right so in order to have a clean page we twist the notebooks at funny angles to avoid smudging. It makes me wonder, Urdu being a right to left script must be a pain for the right-handed people. Though it settles scores to some extent, they have my sympathy.
Tools like scissors, can-openers, computer keyboards, calculators, push button phones, golf clubs and most musical instruments (particularly string) are specifically made with right-handers in mind. A lefty would probably have to pay extra to get the instruments modified, or just too bad, get used to it.
Oftentimes when we take any type of dance/music classes we end up doing the absolute opposite of the taught; mirror imaging the instructor, i.e. whenever the right is used, we use our left. Special guitars and even pianos need to be bought or we end up using the thing upside down.
God only knows the bruised elbows we have suffered when we sit with a rightie (though they have them too),it is a constant struggle to manage writing space, typically ending temporarily with one of the two being shoved off the table.
Lingual prejudices
The words gauche and sinister are synonymous with being left handed. Many people have actually believed that lefties were sinister (in other words- evil!). The very word sinister comes from the Latin word for left, which, at best, means unlucky.
Our language is full of “left handed compliments” or insults for us, the southpaws. To describe some one trusted and valuable? - My right hand man/woman. For a bad dancer- “He’s got two left feet”.
Ever heard “How gauche!” to describe something tactless? You are really saying, “how left handed!” in French. In dictionaries, the word literally means uncouth, vulgar and unsophisticated.
Look up the word “left handed” in the Encarta dictionary, it states ‘clumsy’ as one of the definitions.
The standard word for left also means something very derogatory, The word ‘Left’ comes from old English’ “lyft” that means ‘weak, worthless, womanish’ (another bone of contention, stating womanish as being in the same context as weak and worthless).
In Romany, the word for left, “bongo” means crooked or evil.
Italian “mancino” means “dubious, dishonest”. Among the Nyoro in Africa ‘left’ means ‘hated’ and in Japan it means ’crazy’.
The term “correct” means “with the right”!!!!
The Greek root “dexter” gives us the word “dexterous” (skilful) which means “on the right”.
Right, apart from “dexterous” variously means direct, erect, correct, regal, royal, rights, forthright, upright, decent, dignity and so on.
Religious Prejudices
Three hundred years worth of questions lurk in the mind of the pious relating us, the lefties, directly to Satan! Suspicion of lefties was very common... no Pope was chosen from their ranks.
The right has been hailed as all things good and pure while the left has been shunned as unholy, evil and relegated to inferiority.
Pythagoras set out in his table of opposites; the right was male and light, while the left was female and dark.
In medieval Europe, use of the left hand was associated with witchcraft.
Going counter clockwise was considered moving in the “the wrong direction”. The Scots called this “withershins”, again, pertaining to witchcraft!
In some cultures, the wife should never touch her husbands face with her left hand.
Muslims forbid the touching of any holy scriptures with the left hand.
In Judaism and Christianity, the right side of the body represents the first stage of creation, daytime, Adam, man and active power. The left represents the second stage of creation, earth, matter, Eve, women and receptivity.
In Koran and the Christian Bible God’s chosen ones sit on his right and the damned on his left and thus making them servants of the devil.
In pictures of the Last Judgment, the Christian god shows his disciples their new heavenly abode with his right and points with his left to hell. The “Left Hand Path” therefore, being demonic, is the diabolical and earthly path to hell.
The Advantages!
Obviously most of the above stated is not much in use nowadays(hopefully), so that is a relief.
Now since the lefties have their right side of their brain much more active so ha! Right-handed people are the actual lefties.
We are much more creatively inclined and most of the world true geniuses were lefties e.g. Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Beethoven, Michelangelo.
Lefties are great adapters; they have to make themselves comfortable with all the right-handed tools using them with the right or even backwards.
(It is no shock that left handed people have a lesser life span.)
Most of this discrimination stems from the sanitary habits of early man which I am sure if you use your brain you will be able to figure what exactly I am talking about and also know we would be doing quite the same natural things except with the other hand. If you still do not get it, who would want to eat their food with the hand they wash themselves with? This in effect means that making us work with our right is exactly the thing you don’t want us doing!
There are twice as many males as females who are left handed. People who are left handed consist of 5% of the world’s population.
Agreeably in olden times people had to give a clear-cut difference between good and evil and they had to signify one side as bad, but does this mean we should let this percolate into today’s thought process?
Being a girl and a lefty, should I be proud of being a 1.6% minority, or should I wonder why the world is so biased and narrow-minded; full of people who don’t think out of their own comfort zone?
disclaimer-the above facts have been googled from several sources
