Left-handed-ness

Jim Heffernan, a former Duluth News Tribune editor, posted in his blog about being left-handed.
See http://www.jimheffernan.org/2009/02/left-handed-commentary.html

I sent the the following email to him.

I’m belated catching up on your blog.  The left-handed entry really caught my interest: I too am an overhanded left-handed writer.

But writing is almost the only thing I do exclusively with my left hand, except scratch my right arm:)  I use tools with my right hand.  If fact I can hardly pound a nail straight or saw a straight line with me left hand.

I have a hypothesis on why left-handers write over-hand.

It's how we imitate others.  If we learn something side-by-side, we will imitate our teacher’s handed-ness.  If we learn something face-to-face we might mirror our teacher’s handed-ness.   If we watch somebody write across from us, we will place the pen in the mirror hand.  But then it breaks down because we place the paper in the same direction.  It is very awkward to write left-hand and underhand with the paper slanted “counter-clock-wise”.

I have noticed that fewer people say “Oh, you’re left-handed!”  My inclinations is to say “But when people say that I punch them in the nose with my right hand!”

I am not left-handed

Once in a while when I write something in front of another person, that person will say, "Oh! You're left-handed!" My favorite response is, "You are making a judgment on rather flimsy evidence."

I threw a ball or bowled with my right hand. I hammer and saw with my right hand. I tend to put things on a shelf with my right hand. I start small engines with my right hand.

I've come to the conclusion that I tend to do small motion activities with my left hand and large motion activities with my right hand.

I write with my left hand, I shave with my left hand, and I brush my rapidly thinning hair with my left hand. But if I scribe a line, I have the pen or pencil in my right hand. And I use my right hand on the track pad or the mouse.

Say, if a person puts a phone to their left ear, are they left-handed. I'd say people do that to leave their right-hand free to write.

I once was trying to hammer in an awkward position in which I had to pound with my left hand. I was repeating to myself, "I am not left-handed! I am not left-handed! Owwwww!" as I whacked my right thumb with the hammer.

I have been doing a lot of sawing and splitting firewood. I use the saw in my right hand; I hold the axe in my righthand; and I swing the maul over my right shoulder. Also, I start the chain saw with my right hand and use the saw as a fully right-handed person would. Now my shoulder and upper arm are paying the price of repetitive stress syndrome.

Not one to give up on my chosen chores, I keep sawing up firewood, by hand using a draw saw. I am not left-handed. It is bad enough that I do not make a straight cut with my right hand, but when I saw with my left the saw starts jamming halfway through a log even three inches in diameter. This is because I tend to twist the saw as I move the top of my hand to the right. I have to consciously twist my hand so the thumb stays on top.

And if I want to split one of these pieces of firewood, I have to do it with the axe in my right hand. It is almost impossible for me to even aim properly with the axe in my left hand.

I wrote a bit more on handiness about three years in response to a blog entry by Jim Heffernan. See "Left-handers are not underhanded".

I do have to correct the part about moving my watch to my left wrist; when I wear a watch, I wear it on my left wrist. I need my right hand to set it:)