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

I'm very much a lefty, and I've got to agree that learning to use right-handers things the other way around is probably the best course of action - if you want to try and find left-handed pinking shears or fabric scissors in later life, forget it.

As for the guitar - I play the guitar the right-handed way round, and in a way it makes far more sense; I can do the complicated fingering with my left hand, and leave the easier picking to my right. Jimi Hendrix had the same idea - he was right-handed.

If I were to learn to knit again, I'd learn right-handed. Reversing the patterns is damn hard...

autist - what sort of occasions do yiou have to use 'public scissors'?

Maybe he meant 'pubic scissors'

B

Pubic scissors? this could open a whole new can of worms

laft handed worms?

Yes genetically modifid be left-handed worms, the kind eaten by left-beaked birds.

standing on left sided beach

I'm a photography teacher, so i perhaps cut things away from home more often than most - and it is a fact that sissors dissolve within 10 minutes of entering a darkroom.

aha - that throws light on the matter

Scissors do that is sewing boxes too, you know...

And in Guide (or Girl Scout) cupboards.

OK, I'm left handed - when I write. I'm also left footed when I fail to be any use whatsoever at football. I'm "goofy" when surfing and snowboarding. And I hold a racket (tennis, squash or badminton) in my left hand.

But I play golf, and cricket right handed (badly). I use a mouse right handed (why not?). And I fired an assault rifle right handed, because I didn't get a choice - although I don't think it would matter.

I agree that in the case of things like scissors, etc. it's better to learn to use the right handed versions, simply because that's what you'll find in most places. You don't get left-handed cars with the pedals in the opposite order...

The ONLY thing I would say is - beware of teachers. You might do perfectly well teaching her to write, only to have all your efforts mucked up by some idiot who couldn't get a proper job. My writing was perfectly OK up to the age of about eight, when I started using a pen which leaked a bit. The odd, curled-over state of my hand meant I smudged the ink. A primary school teacher made it her personal project to completely change the way I wrote, so I ended up with my hand at about 180 degrees from where I used to have it. No more smudged ink, no more neat writing. Thanks. So watch her carefully before and after she goes to school. If she looks like changing the way she holds a pen, get to the school, find the teacher responsible, and shoot them. It really is the best way...

H.

Hi,

I had to use an ink pen at school too. I made a terrible mess smudging it with my hand, eventually I realised that I could write well if I turned the paper by 90 degrees and wrote down the page, instead of across it. Try it, it works well when you get used to it.

Once I was working on an engineering project with a group at school, and we were working in my buddy's garage. His girlfriend and her friend were there, and the friend was basically sitting around in the way. So me and my buddy decided to amuse ourselves by asking her to dig through the toolbox and get out the "5/32 inch left-handed phillips screwdriver." We managed to keep straight faces as she brought screwdriver after screwdriver, which we turned down every time because they weren't "left-handed."

BTW I am also left handed.

Wampus the Left

My sister writes with the paper sideways, too. Always struck me as rather funny. I just write with my hand upside down, which everyone else thinks is funny...

Oh - can you other lefties all still write backwards?

Hoovooloo - have you ever tried playing golf left-handed?

It was a revelation for me - my swing freed up - I effectively dropped 6-7 shots off my handicap after a couple of rounds. Unfortunately, I haven't yet been abled to afford a LH set of clubs - still, I am a decent ambidextrous golfer.

B

Any teacher who *rses her up will soon be nmade aware of their error - I'm not having that!

Six years of living in St Andrews have given me a pathological complex about golf, so my concern there wiould not be which hand she was using forthe golf club, but simply that she was holding the damn thing in the first place!

Good point about the cars. Off course, she'll be a millionaire genius, so she'll be able to have her cars customised for her

I'm not sure cars need to be done at all - after all, in a right hand drive, I get to do the difficult stuff with my left side and the easy stuff with my right.

Also, being left handed doesn't necessarily mean you are left footed or even left-eyed.

Æ

We've sort of had this conversation before on Ask the h2g2 Community. See F19585?thread=158084
particularly the bit about why left handed men make better lovers for right handed women!
(some idiot who couldn't get a proper job - thanks Hoo)

I'll vouch for that! I wonder why.......?

I don't know but I'm sure it's true!

*dashes off to read the other thread*.

Master (Left-Handed) B