I am left handed and just recently switched from writing from the side of the paper (not quite overwriting) to underwriting. It's turned out alright, but I need a bit more practice and my letters tend to slant slightly left. The quality of my handwriting (poor to mediocre) hasn't suffered at all though. I've been slanting my paper at about a 30 degree angle and that seems to work best for me.

My kindergarten teacher tried to switch me to writing with my right hand until my mom stomped down to the school and tore her a new one. She was a lefty as well and stood up for leftist rights I do however use scissors with my right hand (and can't cut a straight line to save my life) and play soccer right footed.

I'm off to work on that slant; hopefully I can at least get it straight up and down with a bit more practice.

Jim

pure right handed, and nothing but, here...

Brent

I am right handed but my goal for 2008 is to become left handed.

Good for you. Not enough people take up the mantel! If you search back you'll see that I've been more privileged in my genetics than you, but there's nothing wrong with those who are less fortunate doing their best to overcome the challenges that life gives them.

What about your feet? You do know whether you're right- or left-footed, don't you?

I'm a lefty, but only for writing. Unlike my sister (who was originally a lefty) I wasn't made to change. I'm surprised to see quite so many sinister types here!

Right for a lot of things, left for others. Either for some.
Pen in right hand. Either foot in soccer. Shave, teeth and eat lefthanded.
Throw right handed. Guitar - left.......

Lefty in everything but golf. That I do right handed.

You know what they say: Everyone was born right-handed, only the truly gifted overcome it.

And yes... my tongue is firmly in cheek. So no need to get your dander up.

The way left handers usually write has perplexed me. Especially the way their hand is cocked in such position looks cool.

fully ambidextrous

I'm left handed but learning to become ambidextrous. My handwriting is fairly close with either hand but my right hand is slower than the left. I'm trying to get my right hand involved with various other things right now and it's doing tasks slower but just as well as my left hand.

I'm definitely right handed, but I'm becoming more tolerant of mutant lefties...

I just followed these links...they give some interesting tips on how to hold the paper, but don't give any advice about penmanship. It seems that these days most people teach underwriting to lefties in school (I certainly was - when I tried to write "crabclaw" it was always brought to my attention that it's not a very refined way to write on a page)...but as long as you're teaching underwriting, and lefties may have some hope of writing legibly but we will never write in a beautiful cursive script. Tilting the paper can make a backwards slant look straight, but it doesn't make your writing slant in the opposite direction, like cursive script requires.

Have any lefties on this forum figured out how to improve their penmanship beyond just tilting the paper and hoping things look ok?

I made a thread a while ago http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/in...showtopic=47450. I am a right handed which can also write as well as with my left hand so ambidextrous. If you want to improve your opinion then start to write some sentences quick and in legible manner, also hold the pen normally, the claw and the other methods of holding the pens are to avoid. Find also a position in which you find yourself comfortable to write. I can write cursive italic despite I am not a natural born lefty. I use often medium and fine stock nibs. I can also use my older fountainpens with having the need to have their nib regrounded.

Being left-handed makes writing more difficult---especially with a fountain pen.

Actually, your thread just repeated mostly the same advice that I got from all the other sites - about positioning the hand or tilting the paper, or getting the angle of the pen right. But, I was trying to practice a cursive script the other day and no matter how properly I tilt the paper or position my body or finger the pen, smooth cursive letters that I make still tilt to the left, and then I run into letters like a small S that just cannot be made to tilt to the left, and the whole thing ends up screwy.

I want to know if someone has actually developed a script that works with a left handed stroke. Not one that forces a left handed person to try to do what comes naturally to a right handed person.

I'm left handed.
It's kind of mystery, because nobody in my family is lefty (except my younger sister).

I've no problem with FP. When I was at first class, I had my very first fountain pen (Jolly).
Rather, I have problems with italics and italics pens. I know how it would look like, but I can do that because of my holding pen.

It used to be that 10% of the population was considered lefty but I think that this percentage is increasing. For instance, at my last job, I sat with a bunch of Customer Tech Engineers. There were 8 of us and half were lefties (which made sitting arrangements very interesting).

Jennie (righthand)

Maybe it's just that you are in a position to work with more left-handers.

Most of the left-handers I know are chemists, physicists, or engineers. I, too, am left-handed---as well being a chemical engineer.

Of course, it may be the chemical fumes. (Many of the these people have a terrible sense of smell from chronic exposure to various things.)

Fudge-factors without any explanation!

How did this get published?
Is this peer-reviewed?

Right handed here. Any left handed people having problems buying used pens?

I'm a rightie but my sister is a leftie/ambi depending on what she does.

One of my colleagues has this poster on his desk which reads, "everyone is born right handed, only the talented overcome it."

Anyway, the fact that we read/write left to right means that society finds right more acceptable. It would, I think, be more natural for a leftie to read/write right to left.

im a right handed here and i don't have any problem at all. . .infact.. i love what my right hands can do.. haha..

My mother-in-law was truly ambidextrous as far as writing went.

She was left handed but forced at school to write right handed and just learned to write almost equally well with both hands.

She died this year at 84

I use my right hand for everything. Although my left has the ability to do most things aswell (not naturally though, I have trained it a lot) I am a professinal dancer, and in dance you must be able to do everything on both sides, so I decided to use that mentality for everything I do.

When I write with my left though, I MUCH prefer the outcome of writing right to left "mirror script" than normal. It just feels natural for my brain to reverse everything.

Swavey

I am not an ambi writer (I can get by at a good speed and it is readable but it has the telltale signs of shake) but I do other things ambi - like picking up saucepans, pouring the kettle and even ironing. I even played pool with the cue in my left hand.

I went to school with an ambi girl her writing was the same with both hands no difference - what was REALLY cool was that she could write backwards as well. With little pause for thought she could write anything and it would be the mirror opposite of what it was the otherway round! now that was impressive...

perhaps the egyptians were more inclusive - you can read hieroglyphs left to right, top to bottom in fact which ever way they were writen. I guess the we could say that the left to right was written by righties and the right to left was written by lefties

One of my friends is ambidextrous. He is a natural talent in billiards and can play both ways. Has won Finnish championship three times in a variety of the game we play here and also done well in the pyramid-variant leagues they play in Russia. Has won quite a few bets challenging players to play against him left-handed.

I think this is the biggest source for the skewed poll. I noticed the poll because I'm a lefty. I'm so left in fact that the right side of my body is essentially along for the ride. A contributing factor for my extreme leftward ways is that I have right radial-ulnar synostosis, a congenital defect that has my right radius and ulna fused together near my elbow, resulting in the lack of right hand pronation. My right arm has limitations. For motion, rhythm, and other movements, the right side of my body is generally compromised. I'm athletic and from an outsiders perspective, this isn't noticeable. However, my whole right side, head to toe, is weaker and not as adept to everyday tasks as the right side of my body. All of this, including my synostosis, I attribute as a consequence to my mother taking thalidomide during pregnancy. In hindsight, I'm one of the lucky ones. At least I don't have phocomelia (flapper arms). Still, even without the effect of thalidomide I think I would still be a lefty.

Now to work on my handwriting. . .

Michael

I'm a righty myself. Noticed the poll just find and consider myself quite the stand-up human being, thank you.

Righty here

Im a left underwriter. According to the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, underwriters are not true lefties and will often do many other things with their right hand. This is true for me - I write left handed but sew and knit right handed.
The book says that hookers or overighters are true 100% lefties in that their brain halves are completely reversed (or something like that. Its been a while since I read it), and they do everything left-handed.
What are your experiences?

No, horizontal writing alternated direction. That way you can walk down the wall reading, then walk back reading the next line.

For vertical writing, the columns are left to right.

Its weird because its about 10% of the world is left handed, then shouldn't 10% of this be left handed? It dosn't look like it.

I and my wife are both right handed, my mother is left handed as is our daughter.

I write with my right-hand but I'm actually a left-handed person. I was born left-handed but made to write with my right-hand so that's how I write. However, using the mouse, scissors, knives, fork, and almost everything else is left-handed. I do use chopsticks with my right hand because, again, born into a Chinese family that's the way you're taught. You have to use your right hand for writing and your right hand for chopsticks.

You can do the same with Chinese. With Chinese writing, you can write it top to bottom, left to right, right to left, bottom to top, diagonal. You can still read it. However, traditionally we write from top to bottom advancing from right-side of paper to left-side of paper. With western influence, we have added writing from left to right although that is usually written in a horizontal fashion rather than vertical. But, you could write any which way and it can still be read easily.

FPN members are not a common lot.

Exactly, you just can't compare the world to FPN ! Go out to the street and ask who cares about letters and they'll just tell you one of two things "i don't f*cking care" or just say "i barely know how to write!" so you can't compare.

As a lefty i've a got a lot of problems. I love to be a lefty since i can compare myself to Leonardo DaVinci (or not) ehehe. I even tried already is method to write but... he was too much crazy, it didn't work for me. My problems are most on the type! On normal type, well, i'm already used to write but when i try to do some copperplate it's just pain! Italic at the beginning was pain too but know i'm getting used to it.
Other thing that i have problems on, i don't know if other lefties have the same problem, is ... SCISSORS, i just can't cut straight! I know there are lefty-scissors but... most of the times... you don't have a lefty-scissor next to you...

I'm left handed and left footed. In fact, the right side of my body is pretty much useless.

i feel the same way like "what the hell do the right hand do?" sometimes i take 5 min of my time just looking at her ehehe

Oddly enough I usually cut with scissors using my right hand.

Interesting. My husband's a left-handed underwriter and he does indeed do a lot of things with his right hand. He's an ambi chopstick user, much to my chaigrin.

Actually, I'm ambidextrous in most things except eating and writing, and, when pressed, I can do those with the wrong hand. I'm old enough that, when I was growing up, a lot of teachers still tried to force everyone to be right-handed. I got lucky and avoided that and was allowed to grow up weird. Other than the fact that some tools designed for right-handed people have tried to kill me a time or two, and the inconvenience of having to use bolt-action rifles designed for right-handers (target shooting is a major hobby of mine), I've gotten along pretty well in a world which, until recently, has done its best to ignore those of us who use the "right" side of our brains.

Later,
Ron

I see we went to the same school.

There’s no option for multi-dominant either. I write with my right but throw with my left. I use the mouse and trackpad with my right most of the time but, spinning clockwise is a lefty thing to do and I can’t spin counter-clockwise to save my life. I can’t use a toothbrush with my left but I prefer scissors with my left (when they are available). But I wouldn’t consider myself amidextrous at all since some things I do have a really strong preference for.




That’s really interesting. Someone once asked me if I had any lefties in my family and, ding, my dad is a lefty. “There you go,” he said, “that’s where lefty tendencies come from.” Now I know what he was talking about. Definitely, I am not an RR.




No not really. I use the same 0.3mm pencils and XF pens. I find it helps to have a lighter hand to avoid that snagging.




I took that test and came out as ambidextrous but… that doesn’t feel right. Again, no option for multi-dominant.




Interesting. When I write left, I’m a left underwriter. But then I chose that because the left overhand hook seemed like carpal tunnel syndrome waiting to happen and with a sprained right wrist, I didn’t want another bad wrist. It just made more sense to me. I never really understood left overwriters. Don’t your wrists and hands get cramped?

I'm mostly left-handed, and an underwriter. I use my left hand for all fine motor movements, and my right hand for gross motor movements like throwing a baseball.

Don't know... maybe?



Ambidextrous in everything I can think of except writing. For me, one hand is as good as the other... <shrug>

Don't know what that says my brain! I'd probably rather not know! ; )

Appalling that quite a few of us who probably would've ended up writing with left hand were told that was somehow *wrong* & made to use other hand!

I hope things have changed.

Writing & drawing are really the only things I can think of where I don't just use the hand that happens to be the most convenient.

So does that make me truly ambidextrous? Don't know. If I write or draw with left hand-- it takes longer, and isn't as good.

Sample:

Click to view attachment

If I'm not wrong, I was 'born' (or at least, was taught to hold the pen with my right hand) a rightie but when in school, I got confused during maths and attempted to do my sums from left to right. Some of my alphabets like Ps, Qs, Bs were inverted too. I figured if I switched to my left hand, things would become right. Not sure whether this story is real or a self-created urban legend!

In school, I was lucky that none of the teachers made me switch hands, though one did straighten my book when I was writing with a 45 degree tilt. I just tilted it back after she walked away! Anyway, I hold chopsitcks with my left hand but my right hand is the stronger one which I use for almost everything else, including scissors, penknife, badminton racket, etc. I'm not ambidextrous though as my right hand's writing is bad.

My grandmother was lefthanded but no-one else in my immediate family is and neither are my cousins I think. I call myself a confused lefthander, but I'm happy and proud to be lefthanded! Oh, I'm a left underwriter by the way. Prefer tilting the paper from anywhere between 20 to 90 degrees though, especially when using lined paper.

Lefty!

write with my left.
fork in my left, knife in my right.
Archery with right-handed bows.
dual-wield anything else.
hee hee.

Apparently it was attempted to get me to switch hands in preschool, but it never took.
And then not getting glasses until I was in 6th grade(when I was supposed to have them in 1st, the doctor said), probably didn't help as well.
I <do> learn different from normal people. I do better watching someone else do something, and then I'm able to copy it. I also read a lot faster than most, and retain it much better.
Which probably has nothing to do with left-handedness.