Handedness and Kilts

[CapnJ0]

I write and eat with my left hand and do everything else (golf, bat, throw, etc) with my right. Weird, huh?

The term "southpaw" comes from the old days of baseball, where parks were oriented east-west (home in the west, outfield in the east) in order to keep the sun out of the batter's eyes in later games. This orientation meant that the pitcher's left hand side was the south side.

[thekiltedelectrician]

Me, a Crazy left-handed Canadian living in California, doing everything right

[timber]

I write and eat with my left hand and do everything else (golf, bat, throw, etc) with my right. Weird, huh?

Not weird to me. I also golf bat and throw right, shoot left, eat left, most other things I do with whichever hand is closest at the time.

When you factor in activities other than writing, only about 72% are strongly right-handed and 5% strongly left. The rest have varying degrees of ambidexterity. At work, I use both hands, sometimes doing 2 different things at the same time, but I move opposite to the right handers doing the same job.

[timber]

Good reason for leftys to wear kilts -- zippers are right-handed

[CapnJ0]

Not weird to me. I also golf bat and throw right, shoot left, eat left, most other things I do with whichever hand is closest at the time.

When you factor in activities other than writing, only about 72% are strongly right-handed and 5% strongly left. The rest have varying degrees of ambidexterity. At work, I use both hands, sometimes doing 2 different things at the same time, but I move opposite to the right handers doing the same job.

Aw, shooting! Lefty there too. I have a friend left-eye dominant but shoots righty. That's really messed up.

[Nick]

Good reason for leftys to wear kilts -- zippers are right-handed

Are kilts right or left handed, I wonder? There are buckles on both sides, but it opens on the right. Hmm...

[Eujeankilt]

My Yemeni Uncle-in-law told me that the prohibition on using the left-hand is far more cultural than religious. He claimed that the nomads to the north (in Saudi Arabia and the Bedouins elsewhere in the Arab world) traditional wiped themselves after moving their bowels with their left hands, and so to do anything else with your left hand was to be causing that act to be unclean and the items touched to be unclean.

I've never known whether that was true or whether it was just a slander by the city-dwelling Yemenites against their nomadic neighbors. (Since the area of Yemen has been filled with cities since Biblical times while the deserts of Saudi Arabia were mainly nomadic except for the Red Sea coast until the 20th century).

Anyone know if this is true or if he was just being bigoted towards rural arabs?

I took a class with an anthropologist named Colin Turnbull back in the 70's and he led us through an intellectual exercize about folks from India that would not shake hands with one or the other hand (I don't remember which, but it think it was the right). After going around the room and trying to guess why, he told us it was the wiping thing. That hand was considered unclean. He spent some time doing cultural anthropological fieldwork in India. I guess Charmin is a recent intention :rolleyes:

Dale

[Kiltman]

I was forced to be a right-hander. I do most things with either hand.

[Sherry]

The "wiping thing" was true in Turkey when my DH lived there in high school.

[Pour1Malt]

add anither lefty tae yur list Timber....