Are you left or right handed ?

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Are you left handed or right handed?

  • Left Handed

  • Right Handed


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cornyl

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There has been talk in the news about many recent presidents being left handed. They say that left handers may have more leadership qualities.
When I was in college 7 out of 12 were left handed in my electronics class. (including me) With all the smart creative people here on TRF I would bet that there are about 25% lefthanders out there compared to the national average of 11%.

Never follow a left hander out of a burning building. He will try to push the panic doors on the hinge side and think it is locked. (Yes I did that)

CORNYL
 
Ah, but how will you know if you are getting a true sampling, or that a greater percentage of left handed people might be more prone to answer POLLS than right-handed people? Or, vice-versa? This sort of thing is best done “blindly”, such as one question among several in a larger poll, particularly in situations where people have no choice but to participate (such as students)

Actually I do think that those who are left-handed will tend to participate more in this specific poll than right-handed people.

I expect that more right-handed people will vote overall than left-handed. But, the percentage of left-handed people being about 11%, then a 22% response rate by left handed people would be double the average, 33% would be triple.

Or, to extrapolate something that was said in the Post Count poll about those who do not vote in TRF polls, where not voting is assumed (ahem, Benny Hill) to be a form of voting (huh?). That those who do not take part in this poll will be assumed to be ambidextrous? :)

- George Gassaway
 
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Left handed people are the only right minded people! :D :p

I write left handed and use the mouse in my left hand...
 
hey what about people like me, i am right handed for some things -writing (usually for fine motor skilled) etc, but left handed for others, batting, bowling (usually more physical) so i'm not going to vote!
 
Left handed people are the only right minded people! :D :p

I write left handed and use the mouse in my left hand...

Me too! I think that's because of the way it's set up here at work and home. My wife is right handed. So, I just leave it be.

However, I do eat with my right. Well' both at times!! :D

Cliff
 
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Anybody else go to Catholic grade school in the 50's-60's. Thats when you were either right handed or wrong handed. They (Sisters of St. Joseph) would whip the snot out of ya til ya got it right! Fortunately for me I was right handed, no scars.
 
I'm right-handed. My parents were right-handed. My PITA twin-sister is left-handed. My son writes and eats with his left but does other things as a righty. I do tie my shoelaces as a left-hander, but that's it. I had a co-worker who said she could go either way.
 
Anybody else go to Catholic grade school in the 50's-60's. Thats when you were either right handed or wrong handed. They (Sisters of St. Joseph) would whip the snot out of ya til ya got it right! Fortunately for me I was right handed, no scars.
Sure, I went to Catholic grade school in the '60's ('63 to '70), and as far as I can tell, no one cared that I was left-handed. We had the School Sisters of Notre Dame at our school.
 
I’m left-handed, since I write and throw with my left hand. And use my left hand for cutting things with a model knife. But, I use my right hand for a computer mouse, and if I am aiming something, I use my right hand.

I use my left hand for removing/unscrewing caps and lids. And wish I had a left-handed can opener (I thought that was just a joke in Flanders’ store on “The Simpsons”, but I see there are such things, even Amazon has them).

- George Gassaway
 
i am right handed but am left eye dominant even though my right eye is the stronger one.

Any a nun did beat my mother into writing right handed... i know she told me in CCD class when she wanted to whip me for poor penmenship
 
Anybody else go to Catholic grade school in the 50's-60's. Thats when you were either right handed or wrong handed. They (Sisters of St. Joseph) would whip the snot out of ya til ya got it right! Fortunately for me I was right handed, no scars.
I was in Catholic grade school from 1958 to 1966, and the first time that the teacher ever paid any attention to which hand I held my writing instrument in was when we were "'graduating" from using pencils to using pens, along with learning to write cursive. The lay teacher in that class kept making me turn my paper so that it was a mirror image of the way that right-handers hold their paper as they are writing, but I could barely make anything legible by trying to write that way. After a month, one of the nuns (yes, one of the nuns), who happened to be left-handed, intervened and showed me how to turn the paper the other way, so that I became what is known as an "over-writer." She told the teacher to let me hold the paper in whatever way worked for me. From then on, I never had any problems with my handwriting, and I consistently got good grades in Penmanship.

My older brother is also left-handed, but my other three sibs are (or were) all right-handed, as were both of our parents. My maternal grandmother, though, was ambidextrous. My mother used to tell the story that when her mother would be writing a letter, when her hand got tired she would just switch to using the other hand, and keep right on writing. (Does anyone remember when people used to write actual letters to each other, on paper, with a pen?)

Mark \\.
 
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I am extremely right handed, but my handwriting is horrible either way...

I have to do heavy lifting with my left side though.
 
Anybody else go to Catholic grade school in the 50's-60's. Thats when you were either right handed or wrong handed. They (Sisters of St. Joseph) would whip the snot out of ya til ya got it right! Fortunately for me I was right handed, no scars.

I figured that this was just another dumb poll--until I saw you comments about the Sisters of St. Joseph. I had the misfortune to attend St. Joseph's Grammer school from '51-'60. I will not even bother to relate the tales of abuse and torture inflicted upon the male population of the school. I am sure that you went thru the same hell that I did. Let me simply say that whenever I see a nun on the street--I try to hit her. (I got two so far)
 
I forgot to mention that I have always swung a baseball bat (and a golf club, on the few occasions when I've done so) right-handed. I don't think that it is all that common for anyone to have a truly exclusive hand preference. Most of us make frequent use of both hands, doing some things better with one hand and other things better with the other. One hand is nearly always the dominant one, but it is not the preferred hand for all things.

Mark \\.
 
Mark, you are one of the lucky survivors I'm glad it worked out well for you, by the way we are exactly the same age. Madsen, sorry you had the same same experience as I. Something about the SSJ order? In any event I just wanted to add that I had the same nun for 7-8 grade, you guessed it Sister Charles Bronson!
 
Mark, you are one of the lucky survivors I'm glad it worked out well for you, by the way we are exactly the same age. Madsen, sorry you had the same same experience as I. Something about the SSJ order? In any event I just wanted to add that I had the same nun for 7-8 grade, you guessed it Sister Charles Bronson!
My school was operated by the IHM Sisters, and I attended it during the years when the Archdiocese of Detroit was led by the progressive Archbishop (later Cardinal) John Dearden, an ally of Pope John XXIII and one of the leading promoters of the reforms that came out of the Second Vatican Council. As a result, my school may have been a tiny bit more tolerant than most.

Mark \\.
 
Anybody else go to Catholic grade school in the 50's-60's. Thats when you were either right handed or wrong handed. They (Sisters of St. Joseph) would whip the snot out of ya til ya got it right! Fortunately for me I was right handed, no scars.

Ya, went through that cr%%%, even though I was an A student,they held me back from 5th grade till I learned how to write with my right hand. 6wks of summer school. The year was 1962.
 
George, I was thinking that left handers would lay back on the pole untill they realized the the righties were way ahead. Then they would vote all at once.

I also went to catholic school, (wait future poll idea.. Did you ever get the snot kicked out of you by a nun...a forget that)
The principal Sister Jane Matilda was handing out report cards and had a thing for berating and reading out the grades of sub par students in front of the entire class. Well after she got her good shots in on me I had to go up and get my report card and took it with my left hand. WELL, you would have thought I was the Devil incarnate. She berated me some more and then called my mom after school....BIG MISTAKE. My mom is also left handed and ripped her a new one in every which direction. The next day in class the principal came back and apoligized to me in front of the entire classroom.
Us lefties have to stick together!

Write left
Shoot left
Bat Right
Scissors right
exacto blade left and right
Was right eye dominant untill I blew my retina in my right eye. Now I am left eye dominant.
Circular saw -right handed-no choice

ps George , I built and flew and still have in my fleet your Concorde Boost glider pod ejection design from the early 80's. I flew it at naram 23 at Center Valley, PA
It flew flawlessly. One of my all time favorites!!!
Thankyou for all of your dedication to the sport over all these years!
 
I never experienced any serious trouble from teachers or anyone else over being left-handed. The worst things (and they weren't even bad, or ill-intended) were when other kids would sometimes watch me write something, and then blurt out, more in wonder than anything else, "How on Earth can you write like that?" I would answer with a smile and say "Just fine, thank you."

And then there would be times, like when I would come across a pick-up baseball game and be invited to join in, and then be offered a glove to wear when I was in the field. No one would ever have a lefties glove (for the right hand), so I would wear the rightie glove on my left hand to catch the ball, and then have to whip it off to throw the ball. This wasn't bad, just awkward. It was always kind of the other kids to offer a glove for me to borrow so I could play, so I never complained. But sometimes, in the middle of a play (I always played in the infield, usually second base), some kid on my team would yell out, "Just throw it with your right hand!" Oh, if I only could. :(

And then there were the desks, mostly in high school and college. In high school, some classrooms had those desks that were open on just one side, with a sort of half desktop that had a built-in extension to the side that acted like an armrest. These were always on the wrong side for me. In lecture halls in college, they had the kind that had a full-sized desktop that had a pivot and hinge on it, so that you flipped it up and then swung down into the space on the side of the seat, in-between one seat and the next. Again, these were always on the wrong side for me, and would make things awkward in crowded classes.

Oh, don't get me wrong, now; back in Catholic grade school, I had my share of run-ins with the nuns, but never over the fact of my dominant hand. They had to do with other issues, such as, after 1964, their observation that I seemed to be going for longer and longer intervals between haircuts. ;) :D

Mark \\.
 
I use my right hand for writing and more physical things (bike brakes, table tennis etc) and use my left one for the PC mouse and more tricky things like sticking the fins on a rocket or soldering an smd component. So my right hand is stronger, but my left one is more accurate.

So, does that mean I'm left or right handed? :-|
 
Very Left- handed, whatever that means. I write and throw with my left. I golf and bat right handed, but I can bat left handed as well. I guess I have a right handed shot in hockey. Hmm, maybe not so left handed, but I blame my craziness on being left handed. Maybe I should throw in long-windedness.

I will say that when I write, it is very conventional, not with my wrist turned all the way like some. I have very good penmanship too, if I do say so myself.
 
Very Left- handed, whatever that means. I write and throw with my left. I golf and bat right handed, but I can bat left handed as well. I guess I have a right handed shot in hockey. Hmm, maybe not so left handed, but I blame my craziness on being left handed. Maybe I should throw in long-windedness.

I will say that when I write, it is very conventional, not with my wrist turned all the way like some. I have very good penmanship too, if I do say so myself.
You would be called an "under-writer" then. :D

Mark \\.
 
I do a lot of things right handed (eating, writing, using the remote, etc.) but I throw left handed, so I consider myself a lefty.
 
I do a lot of things right handed (eating, writing, using the remote, etc.) but I throw left handed, so I consider myself a lefty.
Writing and throwing with different hands is quite unusual. I have never met anyone else who does that. Do you do all of your handwriting, or most of it, with your right hand?

Writing and throwing with one hand, and swinging a bat/golf club/hockey stick with the other is not that unusual. Most often it is writing/throwing with the left, and swinging the stick in the same manner as a right-handed person. Lefties often develop the ability to do some things adeptly with their right hands, because practically all door knobs, handles, devices, tools, musical instruments, sporting goods, etc. are designed for right-handers. Being in the overwhelming majority, right-handers don't encounter too many things that turn the "wrong" way or are meant for the "wrong" hand, so they don't often develop as much coordination in their left hands.

Mark \\.
 
I need to correct something. When I said earlier that I never encountered any serious problems from anyone because I was left-handed, that wasn't quite true. I had forgotten about, or mentally blocked, a big one -- the clash I had with my instructor when I started taking guitar lessons. This was back in 1968, and the instructor at the music store where I was going for lessons absolutely insisted that I play right-handed. He said that left-handed guitars were rare; if I managed to even find one, it would be quite expensive. He also said that because of the way the neck, especially the nut, was designed, not to mention the bridge, I would not be able to just re-string a conventional guitar the other way and turn it around. Plus, he wouldn't be able to teach me, because everything he showed me would be a mirror image of the way I wanted to play. Nope, there was simply no other way - play right-handed, or don't play at all. (I had originally wanted to learn to play piano, and if I had taken lessons in that instrument, I would have run into the same problem, only it would have been worse.) So to this day, I play guitar right-handed (when I play at all). And I never learned to play piano. (Some day, though...) The biggest problem I have with it is that I don't have the dexterity to do much finger-picking, any really fast rhythmic strumming or picking out notes for a lead riff. I have never been able to do any of those techniques very well or at all.

Mark \\.
 
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