Ship of Fools: Right or Left

Thread: Right or Left Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by bib (# 13074) on :

I am strongly right handed and really struggle to use my left hand. However, when putting on jeans/trousers I find I always start with the left leg and can't start with the right. Am I unusual, or do other shipmates find this is so? I guess anybody who is ambidextrous wouldn't be affected.

Posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger (# 8891) on :

I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.

Posted by Bob Two-Owls (# 9680) on :

I was a left-handed child but have had it beaten out of me by sadistic schoolteachers. This means that I am now equally clumsy with either hand but I write and throw right-handed but sometimes paint left-handed.

Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :

I refer to myself as "double right handed" as my right is highly dominant over the left.

Where this causes for confusion for some is that I hold my knife and fork in a way that is (erroneously) called "left-handed". i.e. my fork is held in my right and my knife is in my left.

The argument used against me is about strength. My friends, family and colleagues argue that you need your strongest hand for the knife and if that is your right hand, then hold your knife in your right hand.

My argument is one of dexterity. I simply don't have the level of control over my left to be able to accurately aim it at food on a plate, pierce it and then direct it to my mouth. Whereas the knife is a brute instrument that requires little control, except when you are preparing food and have a very sharp knife, in which case it needs to be held in the more dexterous hand: the right.

The slightly idiosyncratic effect this has is when playing guitar I am no good at tunes that require changing chords frequently (a left-handed action) but I am reasonably good at tunes that require a picking action - a supposedly more difficult technique that mere strumming.

Posted by Lucia (# 15201) on :

I am right handed and do most things right handed but I always deal cards with my left hand. It just feels all wrong trying to use my right.

I am also left eye dominant and being cross dominant is a bit awkward for some things and is my excuse for being rubbish at most sport!

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

'Cross dominant' is notable in bat & ball sports, especially those in which when both hands grip the bat (eg cricket and baseball). There are plenty of cricketers who throw and bowl with the right arm but bat left-handed (ie with their left shoulder towards the bowler), because batting is done side-on and their left eye is dominant.

Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :

Leftie here for most daily tasks, but with a few random rights thrown in.

So writing, use of a spoon, stronger arm, racket sports, kicking sports, throwing, instinctive "doing things with" hand is left, every time.

Confusingly knife and fork, bat/stick sports (golf, cricket), and guitar I do all right-handed.

The guitar one is partly because my first guitar was a cast-off, and right-handed, and partly because having tried it both ways round, right-handed just felt more natural.

Posted by Uncle Pete (# 10422) on :

Completely dominant left-hander here - and I am in my right mind! Unlike those poor others.

Crap at anything requiring fine motor skill, but this hardly bothers me at home, since in my house my rules are king. Outside not so much.

Posted by Niminypiminy (# 15489) on :

I've got a cross-dominant cricketing son: weakly right-handed (took ages for him to show a dominant hand), bowls and bats left-handed. Very useful to be a left-handed spinner!

[edited to excise illegal word throws and replace by bowls]

[ 24. October 2014, 11:00: Message edited by: Niminypiminy ]

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

I use my right hand for everything.

(Er ... I probably should have formulated this differently.)

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

I'm right handed but can do most things reasonably with my left if I have to - perhaps as a result of being a goodish keyboard player?

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sipech:
Where this causes for confusion for some is that I hold my knife and fork in a way that is (erroneously) called "left-handed". i.e. my fork is held in my right and my knife is in my left.

The argument used against me is about strength. My friends, family and colleagues argue that you need your strongest hand for the knife and if that is your right hand, then hold your knife in your right hand.

Come to America my friend. The fork belongs in the right (dominant for most people) hand because most of your meal will be eaten with it. The knife need only be picked up and used, briefly, by the right hand, to cut tough pieces of meat.

Seeing British people using both knife and fork on an innocent egg or cooked potato seems like frightening overkill to me. Not to mention the swashbuckling racket it makes. That's why we Americans are all talking so loud in your restaurants.

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :

Right-handed. Not able to do much with the left hand. I suppose with a little practice I could learn to do stuff with my left hand but then I can't really be arsed.

Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :

Right handed but I can be fairly ambidextrous when working in the eye clinic as you need to be able use both hands to carry out slit lamp examinations, remove foreign bodies etc. I have very steady hands which helps.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

Left handed, but pretty ambidextrous due to a broken wrist in childhood and natural perversity. So I can write legibly with either hand (though right handed is jerky looking). More fun, I can write the same thing simultaneously with both hands, either with both going the same (normal) direction, or with one writing the normal direction and the other writing backward (right to left) at the same time. I can do this simultaneously in cursive, which makes for a fun party trick! Requires no thought at all (shut up, you, I know what you're thinking)

Posted by bib (# 13074) on :

But how come I can't put jeans on starting with my right leg? Seems weird to me and I just don't understand it. I'm totally useless with my left hand.What i seem to have is right hand dominance and left leg dominance. [Confused]

Posted by Sparrow (# 2458) on :

I am 90% ambidextrous, the only thing I can't do is writing with my left hand.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:

quote:
Originally posted by Sipech:
Where this causes for confusion for some is that I hold my knife and fork in a way that is (erroneously) called "left-handed". i.e. my fork is held in my right and my knife is in my left.

The argument used against me is about strength. My friends, family and colleagues argue that you need your strongest hand for the knife and if that is your right hand, then hold your knife in your right hand.

Come to America my friend. The fork belongs in the right (dominant for most people) hand because most of your meal will be eaten with it. The knife need only be picked up and used, briefly, by the right hand, to cut tough pieces of meat.

Seeing British people using both knife and fork on an innocent egg or cooked potato seems like frightening overkill to me. Not to mention the swashbuckling racket it makes. That's why we Americans are all talking so loud in your restaurants.

Conversely, watching you colonials swapping right hand utensils all the time seems like an awful lot of trouble. Besides, you need the knife all the time; not cutting up the next forkful whilst eating the previous one is timewasting in my view.

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

quote:
Originally posted by bib:
But how come I can't put jeans on starting with my right leg? Seems weird to me and I just don't understand it. I'm totally useless with my left hand.What i seem to have is right hand dominance and left leg dominance.

I'm completely right handed, but also put on my jeans, socks, shoes, and even earrings left side first. I don't think it has anything to do with the dominant side -- I assume it's because I work from left to right, as I do with reading and writing.

Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :

I'm right-handed, but have some left-handed tendencies - I eat left-handed (spoons, chopsticks, forks being used alone). Now that I think about it, I put trousers on left-leg-first; and when I'm applying make-up I do my left eye with my left hand.

My left eye is dominant, which apparently explains why I'm good at anagrams. [Confused]

eta: I quite agree with KLB about the habit over this side of the Pond of changing the fork from left to right - it looks very odd to me.

[ 24. October 2014, 16:31: Message edited by: Piglet ]

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

Dominant left-hand side. I was lucky in that when I got to school, it didn't take them long to decide that I could make easier and faster progress writing with the left hand than the right, and they didn't force me to use the wrong hand.

I do notice, on a daily basis, just how much of the world is geared towards right-handed people. Telephone handsets, computer keyboards, ticket barriers, mobile phones, mugs with slogans on, kitchen equipment, scissors, playing the guitar, and so on - the list is very long - the default is for the right-handed and if you don't fit that mould then you are constantly having to curb that instinctive reach-with-the-dominant-hand and do what doesn't come naturally.

It's no wonder lefties get confused between "left" and "right" - because the "right" hand is the left hand.

And yes, I do know about "Anything Left-Handed", which specializes in items for the left-handed community, but I would dearly love for these things not to be sold in specialist outlets and to be mainstream and sold at the same price as right-handed people would normally pay for their version.

[ 24. October 2014, 18:21: Message edited by: Ariel ]

Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on :

quote:
Originally posted by bib:
But how come I can't put jeans on starting with my right leg? Seems weird to me and I just don't understand it. I'm totally useless with my left hand.What i seem to have is right hand dominance and left leg dominance.

It could be that you are dealing with the weaker side first, as the second leg to go in is more complicated and thus you want it to be the dominant one.

Posted by marzipan (# 9442) on :

I'm a lefty, but I do a few things right handed like scissors (because we never had left handed ones), peeling vegetables, crochet (because I was taught by a right handed person), I think I saw with the right hand too (but I've not done that for a while).
I always eat with the fork in my left hand but I don't always use a knife anyway!
I have a hand cranked sewing machine which I find easy to use because I can still steer the fabric with my left hand. I sew and hammer and chop things with my left (as well as writing)

I can't throw or catch with either hand very well!

I have a left handed colleague who uses the mouse with his left hand, I can't get the hang of that!

Posted by blackbeard (# 10848) on :

Right handed, but it's not so simple as that.

For instance. I do a lot of dinghy sailing, and this is inherently an ambidextrous sport ... you sit on the side of the boat with the tiller in the hand nearest the stern and the mainsheet in the other hand. When you tack, you move to the other side of the boat so the tiller and mainsheet have swapped hands. The one hand doing what the other one was doing doesn't give a problem for me, nor apparently for anyone else, although the actual mechanics of the move can be tricky.

It's always seemed to me that the guitar in normal mode is a left-handed instrument in that, with most music, the left hand has the trickier task. This may go back to the early days of the instrument when it was used mainly for dance music, just a few simple chords with maybe a more complicated strum. Things have got more tricky since then (does anyone know the real answer?).

Some while ago, after I comprehensively ****ed my starboard shoulder and my right arm therefore spent a month in an NHS sling, I was faced with the need to write left-handed - very slow and laborious, although more legible than normal. Except for my signature, with I could dash off with usual speed - but it came out as a mirror image ...

When using a computer, the mouse goes under my left hand.

Posted by Nenya (# 16427) on :

I am left handed and put my left leg into trousers first, so I'm not sure why you as a right hander do it that way too, bib!

I do certain things with my right hand. I eat "right handed" - fork in the left hand - and I mouse with my right hand too. I feel sad for Bob and anyone else who was made to write right handed when they wanted to be a leftie. My mum suffered this at school and all through her life she said she remembered how miserable it made her; and she always printed, never did cursive.

Nen - everyone is born right handed. Only the gifted can overcome it.

Posted by moonlitdoor (# 11707) on :

I am left handed but don't experience the world as particularly right handed in the way Ariel does. I couldn't guess what she was referring to in relation to telephone handsets and having just been to look at mine, I still can't.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

Single handed things, generally right. Two handed things, always left.

I am unfamiliar with the switchy-changey cutlery thing living in Canada.

I am wondering about (a) which ear you prefer for a telephone, (b) which eye for a telescope, (c) if making a snowball, which hand you grab the initial snow with.

I am right for telephone and telescope, but left for snowballs.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by moonlitdoor:
I couldn't guess what she was referring to in relation to telephone handsets and having just been to look at mine, I still can't.

This sort.

Where phones are concerned, most righthanded people seem to be left-eared, which makes sense because they can hold the receiver in their left hand while their right hand operates the keypad. For me it's the other way round. So the cord usually stretches across the keypad and there's an extra little stretch to get to the buttons. For a right-handed person using it as intended the receiver comes away from the body of the phone, not across it; a leftie has to be careful how they hold the receiver because sometimes the phone can unintentionally be pulled towards you.

On a mobile phone the tiny microphone that picks up your voice is usually also set on the righthand side of the bottom of the phone. I don't know why, as in practice it doesn't seem to make a lot of difference, but just another annoying assumption that everybody is going to hold their phone to their left ear.

Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :

quote:
Originally posted by bib:
But how come I can't put jeans on starting with my right leg? Seems weird to me and I just don't understand it. I'm totally useless with my left hand.What i seem to have is right hand dominance and left leg dominance.

Your "handedness" links to the opposite foot, so a strong left foot is perfectly normal with a high right-hand bias. That's the way the nervous system and brain are wired. You're perfectly normal.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

Right handed and right footed.

For as long as I know, one of the tests carried out at your first rugby practice is to determine if you are right or left footed. I assume that the same happens at other football codes. Your handedness has no bearing on your footedness.

Back to the phones: those few of us remaining who remember dialling a phone will know how hard it was to dial with your "wrong" hand, whether the dial was on a rest such as shown on the link, or at the base of the handset.

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Left handed, but pretty ambidextrous due to a broken wrist in childhood and natural perversity. So I can write legibly with either hand (though right handed is jerky looking). More fun, I can write the same thing simultaneously with both hands, either with both going the same (normal) direction, or with one writing the normal direction and the other writing backward (right to left) at the same time. I can do this simultaneously in cursive, which makes for a fun party trick! Requires no thought at all (shut up, you, I know what you're thinking)

I'm you and claim my £5.

Well, nearly. I'm not sure about the success of simultaneous cursive. I broke my left wrist at 16 and did a set of exams right-handed. Left-handed for writing, but otherwise largely right-handed.

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

Cross dominant but with some ambidextrous tendencies.

It is easier to pot a screw in right handed but remove it left handed. But I'm very right eyed, and as a result cannot catch ball left handed.

Posted by mrWaters (# 18171) on :

I'm left handed. My right hand is stronger, but left is generally more dexterous.

I remember back in high school, I was once asked to solve some mathematical problem in front of the class on the blackboard. I was really really nervous for some reason, I solved it all right and only after I sat down at my desk, my mates started asking me "Aren't you left handed?". Turns out I wrote the whole answer with my right hand. Ah stress. Apart from this experience I can only technically write with my right hand. Even I can't understand what I wrote.

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :

My left eye and right ear are stronger, but other than that I am strongly right handed and footed. I use the computer mouse with my left hand though because when I first started to use a computer an occupational therapist suggested that might make me less prone to occupational overuse.

I am also one of those people who has always had difficulty telling left from right in a hurry (for example if someone says "turn left" I have to think which way that is. It wasn't until one of the 5 year olds I was teaching pointed out that if you look at the back of your hands with the thumbs stretched your left hand forms an "L". I will always be grateful to Byron's Gran for telling him that.

Huia

Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Huia:
It wasn't until one of the 5 year olds I was teaching pointed out that if you look at the back of your hands with the thumbs stretched your left hand forms an "L".

My sister told me that, too. Unfortunately, with my dyslexia, both form an "L". [Frown]

Most of my piano students play more accurately with the non-dominant hand. We have speculated that perhaps it's because they have to think a bit more carefully than with the dominant hand!

Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :

I can throw a baseball or either type of football equally badly with left or right hand. I am ambydextrous at work unless I have to write longhand or cursive.

Posted by basso (# 4228) on :

I'm also right-handed and -footed. My left eye is dominant, but I aim my better ear -- the right -- at people in noisy environments.

I'm another who has a lot of trouble with left vs. right. Not only with the words - it carries over to east or west, and I often read clocks backwards, so that I need to think about whether the dial says 3:00 or 9:00.

Even odder, I sometimes find myself mirror-reversing my keyboard. I'll try to type a 'd' (to delete something), wonder why it's not working, and realize that I've been banging on the 'k' key instead. Occasionally it'll happen while I'm typing text, and carry on for a word or two.

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :

I hadn't thought of the clock reversal, but I do that too, mainly with quarter to or past the hour, 9 or 3 o'clock, less so, but I think that's because the difference in the light.

Moo, I realised the difficulty for dyslexic people when I tried it with my nephew, whom it only confused further.

Huia

Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :

quote:
Originally posted by basso:
it carries over to east or west

My brain works fine with left vs. right in just about all cases, except I can easily get confused between east and west when I'm trying to follow directions or road signs, which cost me and my passengers a couple of hours in the middle of the night once, after I picked them up at the airport at the end of a very long trip. I have to conjure up a mental image of a map before I can trust myself to choose the right direction.

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mrWaters:
but left is generally more dexterous.

There;s something soothingly ironic going on here.

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sir Kevin:
I can throw a baseball or either type of football equally badly with left or right hand. I am ambydextrous at work unless I have to write longhand or cursive.

Sounds more like ambisinisterous to me.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by basso:
I'm another who has a lot of trouble with left vs. right. Not only with the words - it carries over to east or west, and I often read clocks backwards, so that I need to think about whether the dial says 3:00 or 9:00.

Actually yes, I hadn't realized that I sometimes do that with clocks too, until you mentioned it.

I always know which way is left, that's instinctive, but have to stop and think which direction is right. East and west had me confused for years until I remembered that the Middle East is over there -> and America and the sunset are in the west <-. It still seems like an unnatural order of things sometimes.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

I used to have a lot of trouble with right and left until I hit on a tactic. I imagine closing my hand on a doorknob. I always reach for doorknobs with my right hand, so that solves the problem.

Moo

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

Wish that worked for me. I always reach for doorknobs with whichever hand is nearest, or unencumbered. And I can't remember which direction to turn the bloody things either.

I've pretty much given up on left and right, clockwise and anticlockwise. Being ambidextrous (lefty dominant) started the problem, but learning to read Hebrew probably sealed my doom. Now there is nothing I can think of that I reliably do in a single direction only.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

In many Latin American countries, there isn't a single direction in which you should turn the key. You need to memorise it for every door.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

Learning to drive had its moments. I realized one evening that when the instructor told me to turn the steering wheel to the right, that doing this correctly depended on where exactly you were holding the wheel. If you hold it with both hands at the top (which is the approved position) and turn it to the right you will go right, but if you hold it at the bottom and attempt to turn it to the right you will go left (because you're then trying to turn it anti-clockwise). Presumably this is why you're always told to hold it at the top.

It probably won't come as a surprise that reversing round a corner was one of the things I particularly struggled with.

Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :

I was told that when I was a small child I would use my left hand except that if I thought someone was watching me I'd switch to my right hand. There may have been some great aunts who gave me a hard time about being lefty.

These days I'm almost always right handed and fairly clumsy with both my hands in anything like writing, drawing or making things. I can use my left hand for some things that other right people can't. I used to be able to do a sneaky volleyball spike with my left hand.

I describe myself as ambisinister. I was right leg dominant until my bad hip messed things up.

As for pants, mens pants tend to have a definite handeness where the left overlaps the right. That may cause you to pick one hand to grab the part that needs to be placed over the other.

Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :

quote:
Originally posted by marzipan:
... I have a left handed colleague who uses the mouse with his left hand ...

I can always tell if the Dean's been using the Cathedral office computer if I come in and the mouse has migrated to the other side of the desk. He's the only person I know who does it; my Better Half is a lefty, but uses the mouse in his right (just as well, as we share a computer).

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by bib:
I am strongly right handed and really struggle to use my left hand. However, when putting on jeans/trousers I find I always start with the left leg and can't start with the right. Am I unusual, or do other shipmates find this is so? I guess anybody who is ambidextrous wouldn't be affected.

Don't assume that because you are right-handed, you are also right-legged. Everybody has leggedness as well as handedness, and while they're often on the same side, they don't have to be.

The test for leggedness I was taught is to fall forward, or be gently pushed forward. Which leg do you want to put out to stop yourself from falling?

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Your "handedness" links to the opposite foot, so a strong left foot is perfectly normal with a high right-hand bias. That's the way the nervous system and brain are wired.

Um, no. Not at all correct.

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
I used to have a lot of trouble with right and left until I hit on a tactic. I imagine closing my hand on a doorknob. I always reach for doorknobs with my right hand, so that solves the problem.

Moo

If I'm told to turn left I look at my hands, the left one has the wedding ring.

Posted by Chocoholic (# 4655) on :

Who uses which shoulder for bags? I use my left but think most people use the right.

I'm right handed but do do quite a few things either with both or my left, like cooking (I only realised this when we got saucepans that had a little thing to pour on the side) and ironing, again I only realised this when I found I had the ironing board the other way round to most people.

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
If I'm told to turn left I look at my hands, the left one has the wedding ring.

I used to do that -- but can't since getting divorced.

quote:
Originally posted by Chocoholic:
Who uses which shoulder for bags? I use my left but think most people use the right.

Most right-handed people I know (self included) use the left, freeing the right hand for other stuff.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
Most right-handed people I know (self included) use the left, freeing the right hand for other stuff.

I'm right-handed, and generally carry a small backpack or similar slung over my right shoulder. I naturally pick up the bag with my right hand, and the shoulder is where it goes. Once the bag is on the shoulder, my right hand is no longer engaged, and is free to go about its business.

If I were to wear women's handbags, I imagine I would use my left shoulder for the reason you give.

Posted by saysay (# 6645) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Left handed, but pretty ambidextrous due to a broken wrist in childhood and natural perversity. So I can write legibly with either hand (though right handed is jerky looking). More fun, I can write the same thing simultaneously with both hands, either with both going the same (normal) direction, or with one writing the normal direction and the other writing backward (right to left) at the same time. I can do this simultaneously in cursive, which makes for a fun party trick! Requires no thought at all (shut up, you, I know what you're thinking)
I'm you and claim my £5.

Well, nearly. I'm not sure about the success of simultaneous cursive. I broke my left wrist at 16 and did a set of exams right-handed. Left-handed for writing, but otherwise largely right-handed.

And apparently you are both mirror images of me. Not sure I can do the simultaneous writing in cursive. And I tend to favor the right for writing, though not for eating, which causes some cultural conflict.

But people learned early on that if they were a passenger giving me directions they should either hit the dashboard or the passenger's side window, since telling me to turn right or left frequently resulted in my turning in the direction they didn't want me to turn.

Posted by Mere Nick (# 11827) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
'Cross dominant' is notable in bat & ball sports, especially those in which when both hands grip the bat (eg cricket and baseball). There are plenty of cricketers who throw and bowl with the right arm but bat left-handed (ie with their left shoulder towards the bowler), because batting is done side-on and their left eye is dominant.

You are are right-handed batter in baseball if your left shoulder is toward the pitcher. Why is it different in cricket?

Posted by moonlitdoor (# 11707) on :

Right handed batting means the same in cricket as in baseball. I think that is a typing error by Sioni Sais.

Does anyone know why some people have trouble telling right from left ? It's hard for me to imagine, as to me it is as instinctive as knowing up from down.

Posted by saysay (# 6645) on :

quote:
Originally posted by moonlitdoor:
Does anyone know why some people have trouble telling right from left ? It's hard for me to imagine, as to me it is as instinctive as knowing up from down.

Well, not being strongly dominant in terms of which hand you use seems to be my problem. It's very easy for me to do simultaneous mirror writing (writing with one hand in one direction while writing in the opposite direction with the other hand). Which means that some of the tricks they give you for telling your right from your left (like looking down to see which hand forms an L) don't work for me.

I have always tended to favor my right leg to kick with, so if I imagine I'm playing a game of kickball and see which leg I automatically kick with I can sometimes get it right.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by moonlitdoor:
Right handed batting means the same in cricket as in baseball. I think that is a typing error by Sioni Sais.

Well spotted, my error. Thanks for reading!

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Left right confusion is very common in dyslexia - and holding hands up to look at the L made doesn't help them at all. (Letter reversal or rotation, such as b/d, 6/9, p/q, b/d/q/p, 2/5 is also common.) I suspect that not knowing which is clockwise or anticlockwise might cause the problems with reading analogue clocks. Testing students, one of the tests is checking for which hand, eye and foot dominates as they often vary.

The brain wiring that goes with dyslexia often goes with good spatial awareness and the ability to visualise in 3D from 2D, and being able to visualise the rotation of that shape, or see how it would move in time from diagrams. Which is why dyslexics can make good motor mechanics, engineers or architects. It's lovely showing them what they can do, if they've got this ability, because stuck in school with the emphasis on literacy they feel stupid and showing them things they can do but which none of the teachers mentions they can't but if you start the conversation it becomes obvious that this is unusual.

Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Chocoholic:
Who uses which shoulder for bags?

Left, always, and like you I'm right-handed but do several things with my left. It seems to me that if a bag isn't symmetrical, its design looks as if it's meant to be worn on the right, which is a pain.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Piglet:

quote:
Originally posted by Chocoholic:
Who uses which shoulder for bags?
Left, always, and like you I'm right-handed but do several things with my left. It seems to me that if a bag isn't symmetrical, its design looks as if it's meant to be worn on the right, which is a pain.

Makes sense. Isn't it easier to use your right hand to get things out of a bag over the left shoulder?

Posted by Nenya (# 16427) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:

quote:
Originally posted by Piglet:

quote:
Originally posted by Chocoholic:
Who uses which shoulder for bags?
Left, always, and like you I'm right-handed but do several things with my left. It seems to me that if a bag isn't symmetrical, its design looks as if it's meant to be worn on the right, which is a pain.
Makes sense. Isn't it easier to use your right hand to get things out of a bag over the left shoulder?

I'm left handed and no longer use shoulder bags because I've knackered my right shoulder through years of carrying book bags as a student, and handbags, on it. [Roll Eyes]

Similar logic applies to which hip you hold a small child on if you pick one up - the less dominant side, to free the dominant hand for doing other things. My youngest seemed to live on my hip for about 18 months when he was little - I became pretty adept at doing things one-handed.

Nen - a tad nostalgic for the days when her kids were small enough to be picked up.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nenya:
I'm left handed and no longer use shoulder bags because I've knackered my right shoulder through years of carrying book bags as a student, and handbags, on it.

When I did that I switched to using the other side. By the time that side went out of action, the previous side was recovered enough to use again - but by then I'd learnt not to cram so much heavy stuff into my bag.

Posted by moonlitdoor (# 11707) on :

I'd love to see that mirror writing with both hands simultaneously that Saysay describes. It's a pity that can't be demonstrated over the internet.

I could never do that, but I am not strongly dominated by one side. My left hand is more dexterous but the right hand is stronger. But the sense of right and left doesn't require me to look at anything or think about doing anything. If I lie with my eyes shut, it's clear to me which is the left side of my body and which the right in the same way that I know which end of my body my head is on and which end the feet are on.

I had always supposed this was true for most people, but am now wondering.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

Not me.

If you want a video of the writing-two-directions-at-once, try here (machine won't do URL links)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_usHKQbrUo

I can do this at normal speed, without thinking about it. In fact, thinking about it screws it up. I didn't have to learn how.

Posted by saysay (# 6645) on :

Same here. Only I started doing it in print and never tested whether or not I could do it in cursive.

Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
... Isn't it easier to use your right hand to get things out of a bag over the left shoulder?

Not necessarily - I tend to grab the strap with my right hand, and undo zips, catches or whatever and rummage with my left, as the bag's still basically on my left side (or at least left-of-centre).

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