Right/Left Hand?

[ssheng]

One more interesting trivia - strongly left handed people have a mildly higher rate of accident and death by percentage than right handers do in machine based incidents. Some agricultural and industrial machinery is designed to be operated by the right hand, and therefore left-handers lose valuable seconds in emergency situations.

Next time you are in the MTR and using a ticket rather than your Octopus card, you can experiement by 'racing' someone in getting through the gate assuming you had to use your left hand to insert the ticket and they were allowed to use their right. Think of it this way - if you are strongly left handed, that task will take you an extra second or more, either because you have to bend your arm over to the opposite side (all MTR turnstyles are right-hand oriented) or have to use your clumsier hand to insert the ticket. :D

[charade]

[QUOTE=ssheng;1108497 And what the heck are left handed chopsticks?! That's like having a left-handed spoon/fork/pen. That made me laugh.


[/QUOTE]

Oops that was me. And now that you pointed it out it seems stupid. I meant the trainer chopsticks for children - read somewhere about special ones for left-handed kids - but I am neither Chinese nor very sure how children are generally trained to use chopsticks (i did buy trainer chopsticks for my right-handed niece which she liked) so maybe this makes no sense.

Interesting about the writing. I am right-handed but also tend to do the paper at an angle thing. Not sure why though...

The NYT article was fascinating thanks... but it doesn't seem to contradict the left-hand, right-brain theory though possibly the left-hand/creativity theory?

[AmyH]

I am left handed and so is my son. My daughter is showing signs of also being left handed but it is a bit too early to tell yet if this will be the case.

I was the only left handed person in my family. At school, my teacher did not like the fact the I was left handed (the only one in my class) and she forced me to write with my right hand for about a week (until my mother intervened!). Even after that she would make me play right handed guitar. I remember it well and still really dislike her for it now!

I was never taught to write the "left handed way" where you twist your wrist around so you don't smudge your writing so as a consequence, it has been difficult teaching my son to do it!

[ssheng]

charade - yes you're right, they don't specifically talk about the connection between handedness and the split brain in that article. It is more that that connection is not proven (or disproven! :D). Handedness is a fun topic because it is still being studied. And fortunately, like you say, the assumption is that it's positive and left hand might = creativity. There have been some no-so-positive (totally untrue) things people used to assume about the traits of left-handers in history. Actually when my grandfather first discovered I was left handed he gasped in shame and admitted to me, in whispers, that the reason I was left handed was that he had passed on his 'deficiency' to my dad (who, like AmyH, was forced by teachers to learn to do everything right handed, only those teachers succeeded) and through my dad to me. My poor grandpa - not knowing how to respond I told him it was fine b/c I just type all my homework. That seemed to cheer him up!

[carang]

my sister-in-law and my nephew are both ambidextrous. i think it's great... my nephew's teachers aren't so happy with him switching hands halfway through writing a word. i don't see how it matters much either way....