h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Gee, what ever happened to a bent bit of wood & some string


;^)#

Archery is fine, but what about if you are a left hander, but using one of those semi-automactic pistols in the movies. The ejected shells fly towards your face. It must be distracting to continuesly shoot with shells flying in your face! The safety is on the wrong side as well.

When I tried archery, being a left hander, but right eyed, i held the bow with my left hand. My right hand is slightly stronger so it made sense to pull with the right. The only problem was that the string would hit my left elbow as i let go!

That's interesting. I wonder if all lefties consider their right hands to be stronger. I do. Anything that requires precision I do with my left hand; but, when brute force is called for, my right is the tool of choice. Is that typical, do you think?

JTG

I tested my grip strength at the Bristol Exploratory, and my left hand was about 15% stronger. I am left-handed.

Well, that blows that theory. Perhaps, because I'm less comfortable using my right hand for fine work, my right hand has come to represent crude, brutish strength; and the idea that it is actually stronger is an illusion.

JTG

I have a left-handed corkscrew, ruler, pastry fork, grapefruit knife, Swiss Army Knife.
Scissors - I have both and can use either in either hand
I have ambidextrous potato peeler, can opener, cordless iron
you can get some good products these days.
There are left handed shops, there's a good one in London which has a catalogue service and details of shops in other countries, but I'm not sure about h2g2 rules about plugs so look in the Yellow Pages.

I am also SOOOO jealous about your kitchen, I've been living in rented accomodiation for 4 years and will continue for at least 4 more (I'm a student) and I get so fed up of right-handed kitchens, but then all my friends would get stuck if I went Lefty about a kitchen & I have adapted to the RH environment so...

I am in the Guides (Girl Scouts) and we shake hands left-handed.
I am so used to doing this, that I often forget to do it the "wrong" way.

At school, we could do archery. So i learnt to use a RH bow lefty style. It is possible! you just have to concetrate more at keepinmg the arrow in the right place. After using a linx bow, I realised what I'd been missing...

I use my left hand for precision, but when brute force is needed, I *automatically* choose the hand for the situation - ie if it needs turning in one direction the right is used, for the other way, the left. If my body can only be in a certain place, then that determines which hand. As a not-particularly strong very small handed person, I find ingenuity often has to take the place of brute force.

Was born left handed, but after a broken collar-bone aged 2 I'm now a righty - dad's a lefty and avid DIYer, so the house is kind of lefty too - hot and cold taps swapped over, doorlocks upsidedown so they turn the other way, that kind of thing...

Oh, and you can get left-handed keyboards too, I saw one. But it was rather dear and not windows, so I didn't get it.

I'm left handed, but easily ambidexterous with a mouse & keyboard, as most people are r/h, and I sit at a lot of different 'puters. Although I do tend to use 'left handed' passwords, picking ones with most characters from the left of the kybd.

I tried archery left handed when I was about 10, and was completely hopeless. I had a left handed bow, tab, and forearm protector, supplied by the club, and couldn't hit a thing! Some years later, I tried again, this time with r/h gear and had no problems.

daSilva, you might find this interesting, but most of the member of my local fencing club were left handed. About 75%! which meant you didn't have the usual l/h advantage over r/h fencers, 'cause a) all the r/h were used to fighting l/handers and b) you were generally fencing against another l/h. Gave us a bit of an edge on other clubs, anyway. So I was told, I never fought in competition of any level

There's an online survey by an American university about hand preference that makes you think about all kinds of daily minutia. A lot of preferences are intuitive responses to the way things (light bulbs, doors, etc...) are designed. It's easy to mistake habits imposed by a lifetime of conformity for natural preference. Take the knife and fork example: it's difficult to say with certainty how much of a person's stated preference is based on culture. When I was a boy, only a complete barbarian would pick up a fork in his or her right hand.

JTG

Supposedly, the advantage a left hander faces is purely psychological and they would face just as much difficulty in fighting a left hander as a right hander does...

Still, that didn't stop me gettign tied in knots once or twice

Here is a link to a very interesting study on left-handedness at Indiana University:

http://www.indiana.edu/~primate/forms/hand.html

JTG

'you lefties think that they is a conspiracy against us'

Without a shadow of a doubt. I'm a natural lefthander, and during education/formative years, my teachers used to belt my knuckles with a ruler every time I wrote with my left hand. The upshot of this was, up until 9, I used to start writing with my right hand until it got tired - very quickly - then switch to write with my left hand. The only problem with this was I used to 'mirror write'.

In simple terms, I used to write normally with my right hand, then switching to my left would start at the end of the sentence and write backwards so 'left' would become 'tfel'

I now find however, that I am totally ambidextrous except for when it comes to Tin Openers, which I just cannot use.

The general thought of the top archery coach of the world (Korean, but coaching the Australian national team) is that you should let your strongest arm dominate. No matter whether you are left- or righthanded or left- og right eyed. The strongest arm determines whether you are a linx- or a right shooter.

Now, if anyone treated you wrong in college, don't blame them, because this is a recent find.

But still most coaches go on the belief that it is the eye sight that is the determining factor. So that if you are left-handed but with a dominant right eye they'll make you shoot as a right-handed archer. But as stated, recent study has shown that it is your body physiqe that decides in archery - where are you the strongest? And that factor is quite new and can be completely indifferent to whether you are linx or right in your daily shores.
Hope this will clear up some matters, rather than make muddy waters.

Surely that depends. I do remember reading that in the medieval castles you would have one spiral stairway going the "wrong" way so that left handed people would have the advantage when higher. If this is true I don't know but it sounds plausible.

As for an earlier comment about scouts/guides shaking hands with the left, that comes from BP's experience in South Africa where the zulus I think traditionally carried their shields with the left hand and so the act of freindship was to put the sheild down, hence he picked up this idea of the left hand proffered in friendship.

Oh yes I'm very right handed, right footed, but left eyed...

The Kerr clan in Scotland is mainly left-handed, through some hereditary predeliction, so they built their castles with spiral staircases going 'the wrong way', whatever that is, so that they were easier to defend against right-handed attackers.
The problem I have with this is that if you are left-handed and want to poke round the corner with your sword, the staircase goes down clockwise as you stand on it. However, from the point of view of an attacker coming up this makes it easier to point your (right-handed) sword around a corner too. (Think about it, act it out). So where is the advantage?
Nevertheless, a slang term in Scotland for left-handed is 'Kerr-handed'.
You are absolutely right about the shield theory for the left-handed scout handshake - it was a sign of trust to lay down your shield to greet a warrior, but keeping a grip on your spear was a wise precaution, hence the Zulus shook hands with the left. (Ref: Scouting for Boys c. 1907)

As a point of interest - in oriental modes of archery, you visualise yourself as the target, willing the arrow into you, rather than in the west seeing yourself as the arrow, trying to find your target...

This technique may help with a right-eyed, but left-handed archer...