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

I would say that makes you a Social Lefty.

Any random elevator load of humans is more likely to persecute Lefties than be persecuted by them. So, as for feeling alone, you're on the "right" team.

Yay!

As for kid being forced to write with their right hand, I had a little stepsister who's mother would force her to switch, despite her teacher, doctor, and I (you know, being the specialist) told her how wrong it was. So now she's in junior high (secondary) school and can't write with either one of her hands (she wasn't very bright in the first place) and now her mom yells at her for that. It's very sad, really.

That is sad. Poor kid. Penmanship seems to be a lost art anyway. Good! The alphabet itself discriminates against Lefties. Al lthe loops and dashes and tails go in the wrong direction.

Hehe they tried to teach me and I forgot it a year after elementary school...I had a computer early so I learned to type...then I forgot the lower-case altogether and wrote all in upper-case... and then *glowing light* computers began to invade the world and so now I don't need to write at all. . My mom would shake her head and make ::tsk tsk:: noises if she read this.

aren't you glad i got you all thinking?

You're an inspiration to us all !

::sigh of awe/thankfulness::

Amazingly, I won a prize at primary school, aged about 8, for my good handwriting.....the prize.....you guessed it, a fountain pen with a right-hand knib!!!
Oh, and crystallography involves picturing atoms in three dimensions from data which is inherently two-dimensional - hence the left hand advantage.

In other words, I need to find some interesting left-handed people to do my Organic Chemistry homework for me

Well done! That's quite an accomplishment for a Leftie.

I'm dextral (if that is the term). How does 12.5% sound? Of eight siblings only one is left handed in my family.

Finding a left-handed chemist may be easier than finding an interesting left-handed chemist, however. I was a physicist at the time *ducks to avoid flak from people who think physicists are boring too*, (who invented the computer then, he retorts!)

That is indeed the term, my right-handed friend. Of the little I've read recently on the topic, 12.5% falls about mid-range. I've seen numbers as low as 2% (which does seem low, to me) and as high as 30%. As a middle-aged human, unbiased by actual knowledge, I could accept 12.5% without having to reshape my worldview (limited as it is). I wonder if we could test that figure.

My guess would be a bicycle repair man.

I don't think it's that simple. And by the way, neanderthals were equally sinistral and dextral, according to the flint tools found...... or maybe the sinistrals were brighter and made more tools? who knows.

Oh no. It's a very complex and interesting topic, that plumbs the depths of what it is to be human (really). I was surprised, when Kat got me interested enough to do a little reading, how little is really understood about the phenomenon.

In psych we learned that there are not 2 forms of handedness, but 4, the straight left and straght right, and the hooked left and hooked right. The hooked right uses the same part of the brain to process language as the straight left, and the hooked left-straight right. I thought that was interesting. That would take the percentage of people who THINK like left-handers up to 20-25%. The problem is it's hard to define hooked, I write with my knucles pointing directly up, which in the book qualifies as straight, because the wrist has to be above the line you are writing on, but my professor said "So you're one of THOSE" when he passed by me while we were taking a test on the subject...

Well what I meant to say was has anyone else heard anything about hooked and straight?

I can see there being two distinct groups of Lefties. But I don't think I've ever encountered a hooked right-hander. That's interesting. ( I once knocked a punch-clock out with a straight left ).

I agree - I've come across hooked left-handers, but never the right-handed variety. Very interesting though. There is a test to see how left-handed you are - basically which hand you use for various tasks, like writing, holding a broom (which hand at the top) etc. I'll post it when I get a chance.
What about this article then?
Shall I write one and we can add to it?

I think the idea of a hooked left/right is that you position the hand so that you're writing in the opposite direction.., I wonder why it's found in left handers...you know, whether you need to direct the pen from the left or the right. I would think that left handers who were forced to use their right would hook, in order to still go in the direction easier for them, but it doesn't sound like that's the case...

I think a hooked handedness happens when there is a conflict with the motor dominance and mental dominance-usually the right brain corrosponds with superior motor functions on the left, and vice versa, and maybe the hooked is when a left motor superiority is paired with a left brain, so they have to write the stuff as a right hander would but use the left hand, since it's just naturally stronger and easier to coordinate.

I don't know, just a thought.