Left or Right

[jsonewald]

It's strange; only 10% of the world's population is left handed, but the results of this poll don't match that figure...

The difference in handedness between the general population and the FPN population is fairly large. I wonder what all contributes to it?

[anniemac]

I wonder if the results of the poll are skewed slightly by the fact that if you're lefthanded you're more likely to notice the poll and actually give a flying fig what people think about you and your writing habits? A righty might not pay it a second thought, but if most lefties are like me they will jump at the chance to talk about their "specialness"! Righties won't.

Therefore more of us sign up, but the ratios do not truly reflect the handedness of the membership. Though deep down I like the idea of us being a growing force in at least one little world!

Just a thought.

And I'm still looking for lefthanded dessert forks.

[jsonewald]

I wonder if the results of the poll are skewed slightly by the fact that if you're lefthanded you're more likely to notice the poll and actually give a flying fig ...

That is a valid source of error. Self reporting will nearly always be biased. Actually I started the poll because I'm a lefty. I tell people we're the best 10% of the population.

[KateGladstone]

Some of the "skew" may arise from this:

 

/1/ people with handwriting-problems have higher-than-average odds of getting "into" fountain-pens (seeking for something that will help them), and ...

 

/2/ left-handers tend to have more handwriting-problems than right-handers do. (About 40%-50% of my Handwriting Repair [tm] clientele — but only 10%-15% of the general population — writes left-handed.)

[KateGladstone]

Biologists have located the handedness gene. (See below for references.)

 

In humans/chimpanzees/other great apes, it inhabits chromosome 12 —

specifically, a location called 2p12-q11.

 

This gene works in a rather unusual way:

although getting one or two copies of the gene's dominant allele ("R")

produces right-handedness, getting two copies of the gene's recessive

allele ("r") does NOT produce left-handedness —

instead, getting two recessives ("rr") causes random assignment of handedness.

 

"RR" —> a righty

"Rr" —> a righty

"rR" —> a righty

"rr" —> equal odds of becoming a righty or a lefty.

 

Article on the discovery —

http://tinyurl.com/yqtz42

 

Page about some human genes, including this one (first on the page) —

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Omim/getmap.cgi?l139900

 

Gene map for the region of chromosome 12 that contains this gene —

http://tinyurl.com/ypc5lg

 

I just thought you might like to know.

[OldPott]

anniemac

And I'm still looking for lefthanded dessert forks

 

Easy! I used to visit their shop in Soho years ago - but try this link...

 

anything left handed

[anniemac]

anniemac

 

QUOTE

And I'm still looking for lefthanded dessert forks

 

 

 

Easy! I used to visit their shop in Soho years ago - but try this link...

 

 

I will hit the website immediately! And waitresses across the land will breathe a sigh of relief knowing they will no longer be harangued for their employers' inadequacies!

[Chris Chalmers]

Nobody is ambidextrous?

I'm a leftie - but years ago when I worked in the Probation Service in UK, I had a female boss who was ambidextrous and could also write mirror writing with both hands at the same time.............made note taking in Court a doddle!!! Boy, was she smart! :meow:

[KateGladstone]

And "doddle" means ... ?

[ishimaru_kaito]

Doddle - making something an easy task.

 

Did you fix the car? Yes, it was a doddle.

 

I really don't know the origins of the word, but I got it from my parents, and if I remember rightly, my grandfather used to say it.

 

HTH :blink:

[JRodriguez]

I'm a righty, though I can do some things with both, like bowling and batting. My father is ambidextrous in his writing, which I thought was so cool when I was a kid - but try as I might, I could never do it.

[KateGladstone]

What the UK calls a "doddle," the USA calls a "snap" or a "cinch."

[Ray-Vigo]

Lefty!

[Latro21]

lefty, as far as writing is concerned. i can write with my right, but its not as legible since i dont practice it.

[ViolinWriter]

QUOTE (Chris Chalmers @ Jan 20 2007, 12:51 AM)

QUOTE (BillTheEditor @ Oct 20 2006, 09:46 PM) Nobody is ambidextrous? I'm a leftie - but years ago when I worked in the Probation Service in UK, I had a female boss who was ambidextrous and could also write mirror writing with both hands at the same time.............made note taking in Court a doddle!!! Boy, was she smart! Proudly ambidisastrous.

[LeftyLefterson]

Hi! New to this forum. Found it when I decided to improve my chicken scratch writing. Yep, I am a lefty too and hopefully I can share my experiences with how or if I improve it. Just ordered "Write Now" and hope it works.

 

Being a lefty rocks! Yeah writing sucks and scissors don't work for us, but we do have something special. Scientists say that each side of the body is controlled by the opposite side of the brain.

 

In other words, lefties are always in the "right" state of mind

[Shangas]

I'm a rightwriter. Yippee!!

 

On the subject of ambidexterity, (if such a word-variation exists), I had a friend named James in school, he was ambidextris, but his writing was TERRIBLE. I remember for SIX LONG YEARS all our teachers would despair having to read his handwriting because it was so messy.

 

I will admit that until a few years ago, I did not understand why schools in earlier times forced lefthanders to write with their right hands, until I remembered the fact that they used nib-pens and fountain pens back then and that a lefthander would smudge the ink as he/she/it wrote across the page from left to right. My dad used to tell me stories about that sort of stuff,(my dad's a right-hander), about how when he was in school, the teachers used to whack lefthanders on their wrists with rulers to make them switch hands.

 

It's not easy doing that. I tried once. My writing wasn't even writing. Just horrible scribbles....

[gcfeller]

I'm a lefty, or "South Paw" if you prefer. Being left handed was actually one of the main reasons originally that I switched from pencils to pens in my youth. I'm often an overwriter, so I would tend drag my hand across everything that I wrote causing my hand to be covered in lead in very short order. Switching to pens helped reduce that problem quite a bit. Now I'm almost 30 and I still have some of the bad penmanship habits I developed in my youth, many of them intentionally because I didn't want to write the way they told me I was supposed to (ah, the rebellion of youth), so it's up to me to now try and break years of bad habits, but there's no time like the present to start, right?

[wvbeetlebug]

Righty!

[mr T.]

Nobody is ambidextrous?

 

People who regard themselves as ambidextrous have brain damage and are not born that way (like lefthanders or righthanders). According to this article are ambidextrous people 1) the result of the converting of a left-hander (a functional brain damage); or (2) the result of perinatal cerebral damage in the dominant cerebral hemisphere.