Ambidextrosity

Posted by Hazelton from 208.229.128.117 on January 17, 2001 at 00:04:18:

In Reply to: A different topci posted by Michaelson on January 16, 2001 at 13:00:14:

Some people can write with either hand. My father is one of them. When he was about seven, he burned his arm on a stove and had to write right-handed for his school work since his left arm was in an unwieldy bandage. Nowadays he can write with either hand, and the handwriting looks almost identical, except that his left-handed writing looks slightly unsteady. Also, he writes much more quickly right-handed, since he never went back to being a left-handed writer. I personally am not ambidextrous with a pen, but I am with a lot of other things, like shooting pistols or swinging a hammer. Maybe Hitler was "sort of" left-handed, doing things like throwing, kicking, etc. left-handed, but writing right-handed. Right-handed writing was strongly encouraged during that time. I've heard of people tying their children's left arms to their sides or behind their backs or giving whippings to ensure that the child would write (or shoot, or whatever) right-handed. Being left-handed was considered to be a sort of minor catastrophe, giving us interesting sayings like "gauche" (French for 'left' or 'left-handed'), "a left-handed compliment" or even the modern definition of "sinister," an old Latin word for left or left-handed. Bit of a long post, but, being "kind of" left-handed myself, I've probably thought about this a bit more often than most.

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: Some people can write with either hand.  My father is one of them.  When he was about seven, he burned his arm on a stove and had to write right-handed for his school work since his left arm was in an unwieldy bandage.  Nowadays he can write with either hand, and the handwriting looks almost identical, except that his left-handed writing looks slightly unsteady.  Also, he writes much more quickly right-handed, since he never went back to being a left-handed writer.  I personally am not ambidextrous with a pen, but I am with a lot of other things, like shooting pistols or swinging a hammer.  Maybe Hitler was "sort of" left-handed, doing things like throwing, kicking, etc. left-handed, but writing right-handed.  Right-handed writing was strongly encouraged during that time.  I've heard of people tying their children's left arms to their sides or behind their backs or giving whippings to ensure that the child would write (or shoot, or whatever) right-handed.  Being left-handed was considered to be a sort of minor catastrophe, giving us interesting sayings like "gauche" (French for 'left' or 'left-handed'), "a left-handed compliment" or even the modern definition of "sinister," an old Latin word for left or left-handed.  Bit of a long post, but, being "kind of" left-handed myself, I've probably thought about this a bit more often than most.

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