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Being Left Handed

(45 Posts)
NannyJanny53 Thu 17-Sept-15 12:53:25

I quite like being gammy handed as they call it up here, makes you feel a bit special hmm but it has it's problems. Any others out there who always enter revolving doors to your left and get stuck? Continually bump into people coming towards you on a busy street because you move left to avoid them and they move to their right? Air kissing ends up as rubbing noses or a head butt? Or do you have to re arrange your cutlery drawer when someone has put your knives and spoons the wrong way round?

Anniebach Thu 17-Sept-15 13:09:49

All the same for me NannyJanny, do tell please, do you find breaking window and door handles can be done without any effort ? and I hope you will tell me your family keep asking - how can you break kettles? Not that I want you to keep buying kettles , just looking for a reason why I have had to buy four this year - again

merlotgran Thu 17-Sept-15 13:46:30

Going up a flight of stairs against the tide of people coming the other way. You can hear all the tutting!

I was once picked out of an audience to 'help' a woman doing a demonstration of how to make wedding favours. It involved scissors, pinking shears and tying neat bows in shiny ribbon shock

Being cack-handed, I managed to muck up just about everything she asked me to do. Oh how she must have wished she'd chosen somebody else. grin

Teetime Thu 17-Sept-15 14:18:51

DH is amphibious smile try laying tennis or badminton with someone who keeps switching the racket around from hand to hand and he always puts things on the wrong side of the sink for washing up.

ninathenana Thu 17-Sept-15 14:19:15

DD is left handed when eating, writing, and using scissors but as far as I'm aware she doesn't have any of the other problems mentioned. Interesting hmm

ninathenana Thu 17-Sept-15 14:23:33

That was deliberate wasn't it Teetime ? grin
I am too. Which is the "wrong" side of the sink confused

MiniMouse Thu 17-Sept-15 14:30:53

Years ago I joined a caligraphy class. The tutor saw that I'm left-handed and made the comment that I wasn't to feel too disappointed if I found that I couldn't do it because "left-handed people find it impossible"!! Well, I suppose my subconscious Red Rag/Bull mode kicked in and I stuck at it! During one lesson, I was so totally absorbed that I hadn't noticed that the classroom was empty - or so I thought . . . The tutor had quietly got all the other students to stand behind me to watch me at work because she'd never seen anyone actually accomplish what I did blush blush

Oh dear, that's not meant to sound as though I'm bragging, but simply to show that sometimes being left-handed doesn't have to mean "can't do"!!!

Do any of you find that you're ambidextrous for a lot of things? I use a knife and fork with the fork in my left hand, but I carve a joint of meat using the knife in either hand. I play crazy golf right-handed, but rounders/tennis left-handed. I scoot with my left foot on the footplate and kick a football with either foot.

Kitchens are usually planned for right-handed people - draining board is the 'wrong' side of the sink, fridge and oven doors etc open the 'wrong' way (I know some can be switched round), saucepan lips are on the wrong side.

Yes, Merlot scissors!!! I recently bought a left-handed pair, but I find them impossible to use because my poor addled brain just can't cope with the neural pathways required to cut in a straight line. I'm even worse than when using right-handed scissors and, believe me, that's going some wink

Stansgran Thu 17-Sept-15 14:44:22

I'm the same and dgs 2 has poor left handed writing . They may teach them differently these days but DD2 is very left handed and passed it on. I've started writing to him in" code" mirror writing like Leonardo the artist not the turtle as he keeps saying.

Alea Thu 17-Sept-15 15:27:57

DGS2 is left handed and loves drawing and colouring. He is also the "individualist" in the family, vivid red hair, very picky about what he wears, odd socks are standard, favourite colour purple, and "when I gwow up I'm going to be a pwincess"

rosesarered Thu 17-Sept-15 15:28:21

I am right handed, DH is right handed except for sport, needs left handed golf clubs, plays cricket( with bat) left handed way.DD and husband are right handed but DGS is totally left handed.Our DS is exactly as my DH,
But his son is totally left handed too!There's a lot of it about. smile

annodomini Thu 17-Sept-15 16:01:57

My ex is left-handed but played golf with right-handed clubs. My sister is left-handed but can use scissors and knit right-handed. My right-handed son can play tennis with either hand. It seems to me that left-handed people are more likely to be ambidextrous but that is probably because life in general is geared to us righties. I am so right-handed that when my right hand was strapped up for six weeks I had a great deal of trouble persuading my left hand to use a mouse.

Leticia Thu 17-Sept-15 16:03:07

I love the thought of being amphibious! grin
I like being left handed and don't find it much of a problem. Other people are the problem thinking that I look awkward when cutting bread etc.

Marmight Thu 17-Sept-15 16:10:36

2 of my daughters are left handed for absolutely everything as are 2 of my sils . Strangely only 1 gc out of 8 is LH. The girls have always had beautiful handwriting and hold the pen in the correct way and have never had problems with smudging. One can play tennis with both hands which is quite an advantage (no pun intended). They have always coped with scissors/can openers etc. and the only problem has been for me - I make sure I sit on their right at the table as the left arm is always waving about in the airier digging me in the ribs...

Auntieflo Thu 17-Sept-15 16:21:05

I was born left handed, but was made , encouraged to be right handed as a small child, in those far off days when some people knew best. I don't remember any of this, Mum told me, but when I broke my right wrist, playing hockey at school, I was able to manage well with writing left handed.

NannyJanny53 Thu 17-Sept-15 16:30:08

Yes, wrapping presents involving scissors and bows - just not worth the effort! I haven't broken any kettles but the handles are always left the wrong way round. I get moaned at for tying my DGD's laces so that they turn into knots when anyone else tries to untie them and I used to be blamed for tangling the cord on telephones back in the day.

I think I am a bit amphibious because I used to play hockey right handed and hop on my right foot. I would always look through a telescope with my left eye though (given a choice).

When I started school I used to write in perfect mirror writing, I still have the exercise book to prove it.

M0nica Thu 17-Sept-15 16:33:01

DDiL and DGS are left-handed. When I had an assessment for dyspraxia the therapist was quite clear that I was unequivocally right handed..... yet...
I do a significant number of things, by preference , with my left hand. My mouse is on the left of my computer because I have always founded it easier to use a mouse with my left hand than with my right. I tend to operate tin openers and hand whisks with my left hand as well.

DH blames my inherent cussedness.

kittylester Thu 17-Sept-15 16:34:44

I'm left handed and have never really found it to be a problem although I am not artistic in any way as is supposed to be the case. I too managed writing easy and didn't smudge (not sure why I can't manage neat writing now!) I use my knife and fork 'properly' but can't use a spoon and fork to eat as it just confuses me. Most scissors etc are ambidextrous (or amphibious!) nowadays.

I've found that I can manage any new skill with my right hand (old fashioned adding machines etc) and can type using both hands. Can't knit anyway but I suppose that might be related.

DD2 is the only one of ours who is left handed and her eldest is also left handed. DD1's husband and all his family (apart from his mother) are left handed yet none of their children are.

Charleygirl Thu 17-Sept-15 16:50:46

Both my parents were left handed but both wrote with their right hands and I am exactly the same. They were forced to at school, I do not know if I was or not.

In the days when I knitted I used my left hand and my mouse is on my left. You may be confused if you dined at my house as the cutlery to a right handed person would be the wrong way around. I do have problems opening tins.

I am fortunate, I am fairly ambidextrous.

We are supposed to be more intelligent!!! I run to hide.

Anne58 Thu 17-Sept-15 17:36:25

Another lefty here!

Although I use my cutlery the right handed way, and have my mouse on the right so that my left hand is free for writing.

sherish Thu 17-Sept-15 17:45:08

I am left handed as was my mother and my sister. I don't remember ever being encouraged to use my right hand as my mother was when she was at school. I seem to have adapted to the right handed world quite well and don't have much difficulty. I knit right handed but crochet left handed. When I hand sew a hem I start at the left, something which teachers found very odd but left me to it. My Dad couldn't bear to watch me cutting anything as he always said I looked clumsy.

Most gadgets etc are made to cater for the majority but us left handers have never known any different and we adapt eventually.

rosesarered Thu 17-Sept-15 17:49:55

Although I am right handed, I read a magazine from the back to the front ( not books though, for obvious reasons!

Anniebach Thu 17-Sept-15 19:12:50

I use knife and fork the same as right handers but that's it, I do remember when aged five and moving into the big school when we began studies I was told not to write with my left hand, my father stopped this immediately , I was rather puffed up when I heard him say - she is perfect as she is

Indinana Thu 17-Sept-15 20:30:17

My DD is ambidextrous - or amphibious grin. She writes with her right hand, but can use her left almost equally well if her right one is out of action, and she does most other things with her left hand. All her girlfriends are so jealous watching her put on her eye make-up - none of this awkward hand across the eye nonsense trying to get eye liner on her left eye. She just swaps hands envy

absent Thu 17-Sept-15 21:42:30

When my mother applied for her first job (back in the Dark Ages), the boss who interviewed her reckoned that she wouldn't be suitable because she was left-handed and she (boss) had never seen anyone take Pitman shorthand left-handed. However, she was fair-minded enough to give her a test which my mama passed with flying colours ?? and she got the job. Mum later qualified as a shorthand teacher and could take very accurate dictation at 120 wpm but never achieved her ambition to work in Parliament because it was against Hansard's rules to employ a left-handed person.

Ana Thu 17-Sept-15 21:44:56

Really? That's shocking.