There's a reason sinister means "on the left"

Yeah, was reading an article a couple days ago (prolly the same one) saying that evolution has kept us around for a reason. The thought is that we're actually more highly evolved than the troglodyte rightys.

In fact, I think we should just enslave all right-handed people and start some sort of culture war. I don't think we have enough on our hands already...hehe

Ace, Iblis is spelled with an "I"

Ace, not only am I a left-handed coward, but I also happen to have different-colored eyes.

Some people just can't win! ;-)

Hmmm...only because this may have some bearing on the Paul vs John thread-

Paul? Lefty.
John? Righty.

I'm just sayin', is all.........

And if you meet someone with the last name of Kerr, check their handedness.

For some reason, left-handedness was a dominant trait in that clan, and they even built their defenses to take advantage.

Thus, Scots "Kerry-handed."

Yet another piece of useless information acquired by obsessive reading of history.

I'm left handed but otherwise pretty conservative.

Just in case no one has heard this before:

Southpaw
Southpaw has its origins in 1880s' baseball slang. Baseball diamonds were often arranged so the batters would face east, to avoid looking into the afternoon sun. The pitcher's left hand, or paw, would therefore be on the southern side.

From www.wordorigins.com, and really, why would they lie?

We need the sneakiness to compensate for our disadvantages at tool use.

Don't forget that French for left is "gauche".

I'm a southpaw too, and damned proud of it.

Close, but no cigar...

Dexter: Latin, right hand or handed. Also root for "dexterous" and "dexterity."

Sinister: Latin, left hand or handed.

QED

Da_Wiz Sends

When I was fencing back in The Day, the only thing that gave me an edge in matches was my left handedness. Damned if I know why righties can't deal with it.

Alex,

Michelle got an email from a lefty fencer who explained it.

My twin sister has green eyes, mine are blue, I'm right-handed, and, yes, she's a southpaw. Now that you mention it, she IS a mutant. Dad used to joke that the mailman and the milkman delivered on the same day. Mom didn't laugh.

I'm one of those super-mutants who does detail work (writing, eating) left-handed, strength work (sports) right-handed, and sometimes I go "both ways" (scissors, painting, playing pool).

I've also been a sword fighter on and off for over 20 years and the fencer's added comments on Malkin's article is completely true. Whenever you see a choreographed sword fighting scene in a film, both fighters are almost always same-handed because it is TOUGH fighting someone with the opposite stance, even when just 'pretending'. (Watch the fight scene in "The Princess Bride" for an example.) I read years ago that a study showed left-handers actually have faster reflexes -- not by much, something like 1/100 of a second, but that can make a difference in a sport like fencing.

I also heard that the number of lefty US presidents is a higher percentage than the norm but I don't know the numbers. I did notice that, when going through college, there was an unusually high number of people in my fields of study (computer science, math, physics, engineering) who were lefties.

At least we have THAT going for us. Everything else is anti-lefty. Not all classrooms have left-handed desks, the left hand is used for fewer keys on a keyboard, notebooks -- like spiral and loose leaf-- are designed to keep the rings out of right-handers' way, writing goes from left to right so right-handers won't smudge the words...and the next time you use one of those pens to electronically sign your name on a pad when checking out at a store, look at which SIDE of the pad the pen is attached to!

Well I for one am TIRED of being discriminated against. I've talked about establishing left-handers as a legitimate minority ever since my college days, and now our time has come. Hey, I've heard of far more idiotic specialty groups, so why not us?

Left-handers of the world, unite!

Later,
bbeck

Great, all we need is replace all guns with swords to throw down the rightist oppressors when the revolution comes! Then for the mass show trials and executions of the counterrevolutionary wreckers with left handed scissors.

Wait..I think I'm getting mixed up here...

Ace - it's not so common really! Less than 10% of the population are lefties (more men then women go figure).

bbeck - The International Left Hand Day is August 13 - unite indeed!

Trivia - Da Vinci's notes weren't written in code - he was merely mirroring (is that even a real word?) RH writing! any leftie out there can do it too!

Ilbis,

Duly noted. But NickS tipped me first in an email, and provided the link to the dictionary definition.

This sneaky southpaw mutant ex-fencer will be sneaking off to duly vote for most-favoured righty-geek Ace.

Fencing, schmencing. A more easily realized advantage is found playing tennis. A southpaw with any sort spin on his serve can make righties look like, well, stupid mutants.

A lefty too.

Lefties of the world, untie!

Left-handed as well.

As bbeck noted, that's not exactly "breaking news" except to someone in the MSM to whom it's a new world every time they blink.

Anyone who's ever fenced, or studied knife, knows that southpaws have an advantage in sword and knifesmanship: they present the "wrong" side of their body to an opponent who's used to dealing with righthanded attacks, and their attacks come out of the "wrong" quadrants. It takes a perception shift for a righthander to deal with it on the fly.
There's a similar effect in h-t-h martial arts, to a lesser degree.

'Course... newsies never bother to actually look into the background of a breaking "scoop" these days, it seems, or they'd have discovered that. Probably none of tehm ever took highschool or college fencing either.

I'm ambidexterous, for whatever that counts. ;]