LEFT HANDED ROLL CALL

i would like ilx's left handers to represent themselves

hi

Yo and such.

+1

i am 50%

yipyipyip

Sup motherfuckers?

Are you left- or right-handed? Take the test!

hello

a year from today that poll closes!!!

that's time enough for righties to learn

Here.

hello

lefty 4 life

we've had this discussion on another thread but fake lefty here (i.e. I write left-handed but am probably actually right handed since I do everything else - guitar playing, tennis, punching, archery the time I tried it at Cub Scout camp - right handed without any difficulty).

that's not fake lefty, i'm like that too

ditto.

it sez left-handed leftist on my facebook...

i am also one of these freaks

I write left-handed but am probably actually right handed since I do everything else - guitar playing, tennis, punching, archery the time I tried it at Cub Scout camp - right handed without any difficulty).

i write left-handed but do everything else - guitar playing, tennis, punching, throwing - right handed with great difficulty.

i've felt very in touch with my handedness since re-teaching myself to play drums left-handed a couple of years ago.

Wow, Jordan that's awesome. I'm a righty when a play drums, too

I play guitar right handed because left handed guitars are rarer, i can't be arsed changing the strings around and, here's the kicker, i still need to use my left hand.

On drums - you use 2 sticks, how is there a lefty and a righty way of playing?

I totally shunned the guitar I was given for Xmas aged 6 because of lefty issues.

i play pool left handed dunno why cause i do everything else right handededed

snare to the righr, all ofit "backwards"

Yep, I'm cackhanded. My brother bats left, but does everything else write. My best friend writes left, and holds his knife in his left, but does everything else right-handed.

They are impure mongrels.

write? WRITE? Jesus.

I play guitar right handed. It seems natural because that way I'm using my left hand - the faster and more accurate hand - to fret the strings.

no no no, i didn't change my setup at all. i still play on a righty kit, i just play left hand-lead, at least for faster tempos.

a hoy hoy, right vs. left on a drumkit usually refers to which hand keeps time on a cymbal and which hand you start with for fills (to put it simply).

me

ayo

this is what left hand lead looks like, as opposed to most drummers where your right hand crosses over your left when playing the hi hat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RspVB-jt-GA

Left-handed for writing, playing sports etc

Right-handed for eating, using a mouse etc

Left-handed for writing, throwing darts.
Right-handed for most everything else.

Does right handed for eating mean "fork in the right hand knife in the left", or is it the other way around?

i think right-handed for eating means fork in the right except when the knife is in the right cutting something

I play bass right-handed, and hockey. Everything else left, except mousing on the 'puter which I alternate between the two.

xxpost

Differs between US/UK. In the UK right-handed eating is fork in the left, knife in the right. God knows what wacky shit you guys do.

what hand is used when the knife is not involved

Left, generally, because we usually learn knife and fork in two hands as the industry standard.

(xxpost) OK so I kick it UK left handed style when I'm eating then.

sinister

Part of Speech: Adjective

Meaning: 1. Evil or presaging evil, suggesting wickedness, depravity. 2. Presaging something very bad or disastrous. 3. (Heraldry) Sinistral, to the left of the wearer (the right of the onlooker) on a coat of arms or shield.

Word History: One of the few overlooked persecuted minorities left in the world is left-handers. Only recently have US schools begun to provide desks for left-handers in the classroom but the speech police have not yet begun to investigate the sinistrally prejudicial words in English. Sinister began as the Latin word for "left" or "left-handed", then expanded to mean "presaging evil". A "left-handed compliment" is one with a hidden insult. Finally, there is the French word for "left-handed", gauche, which means "awkward, inept, clumsy". Should we quarantine these words as we do slurs against other minorities? (No one knows where Latin got this word but our gratitude to Perry Dror for getting it to us is as 'right-handed' as it is sincere.)

I've only just realised how counter-intuitive the cutlery thing is, now you point it out.

Lefty, present and accounted for, sir!

Can ably switch to right-handed when applying mascara, lefty in tennis/badminton but can switch hands and hit a passable forehand with my right...but for most everything, all lefty, all the time.

Lefty here, too. I can't imagine playing guitar left handed. Always made sense to do the dexterous fretting with my left and never got why right handed people would wanna do it that way. I cut with a scissors and shoot a gun right handed, but that's where it ends and everything else is all left.

i'm not a guitarist, but doesn't picking require more fine motor control?

Depends what you're doing, really, but I always found four-finger chord shapes and playing leads and stuff to require more from my left whereas all the picking and strumming with my right has been completely intuitive and I haven't had to fuck with it, mostly. Carter picking on the other hand...

Write/eat left-handed, play guitar left-handed (although I can't really play), kick left-footed, everything else right.

left handed, i've always put my lousiness at playing the guitar down to learning it righthanded though. self delusion is a wonderful thing.

On drums - you use 2 sticks, how is there a lefty and a righty way of playing?

Well, it also determines how you set up your kit, because presumably if you are left-handed, like me, your left foot is also dominant and thus the positions of various instruments are switched.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081122025926AAYndG1

lefty here

must be a pain to be a left-footed drummer, you can't sit in on anybody's kit

otoh, other people are less likely to appropriate yours!

u r all demons iirc

all instruments are racleftist huh?

drums actually aren't because the kit is modular.

huh, good question.

piano - no such thing as a left-handed piano, just gotta deal.

guitar - sure, get a left-handed guitar, play a regular one upside down, whatevs

upright bass - don't know. does anyone reverse the string order, or just play a normal upright with the right hand doing the fingering?

sax/reeds - no such thing as a left-handed sax, but you use both hands to finger in pretty much the same way, right? so lefties and righties should have the same challenges?

brass - pretty sure there are dudes who play trumpet and trombone with the left-hand working the valves/slide. never seen a left-handed sousaphone, but from what i understand your embouchure is way, way more crucial than whatever your hands are doing.

pretty sure those are all the instruments.

I too bat & play racquet sports right-handed. And mouse, which is odd, because I think of that as a fine-motor finesse action, akin to writing and drawing. I will occasionally take a paintbrush into my right hand if the angle demands it. I guess I'm kind of ambidextrous.

>must be a pain to be a left-footed drummer, you can't sit in on anybody's kit

i've gotten really fast at switching them around. the slowest part is explaining what i'm doing and reassuring people i'm not gonna break anything

it's cute watching right-handed drummers try and play kits set up for lefties.

Left handed for writing, playing pool/snooker, and I use a fork in my left hand even without the knife in my right hand (I think the clincher for cutlery is a spoon, most right-handers I know eat soup etc with the spoon in their right hand, but I use my left). Everything else, eg racquet sports*, darts, bad guitar playing, bowling, throwing - right-handed.

Oh, hang on, with a gun, my left hand is my trigger finger - is that another left-handed thing I do? (I used to do competitive rifle-shooting as a teenager)

* tennis is a bit trickier with the racquet being heavier, but when I used to play badminton and squash competitively, I used to piss off weaker opponents by switching the racquet between hands rather than ever playing a backhand.

I've just realised I use my right thumb for text messaging.

ned flanders

slightly left-handed. two-handed sports like golf and cricket batting left-handed.

write, throw, tennis, etc right-handed

Lefty and proud. I even wrote a left-handed manifesto in high school that got published in a street zine. Angsty leftist politics included more left-handed desks, the acceptance of left-handed hand-shakes, the availability of left-handed notebooks and other rants like "this is a right-handed world!! the cruelty!"

i play pool left-handed, i dunno why

everything else w/ the right

my lefty-ness only becomes problematic when using binders and spiral-bound notebooks. Ugh and inky leaky fucking pens. I'm looking at YOU Bic biros. Oh and I guess chalk, charcoal and smudgy pencil can get thrown in there too. Most other inconveniences, I'm kind of meh about now that I'm older. But I do notice that some leftys are VERY lefty, ie writing style where arm almost encircles the page, or having to sit at the open end of a table because they hold their knife and fork around the other way, stuff like that...I must have been over-assimilated or something when I was a kid, because I don't have the awkardness. not that I'm bragging, mind.

You shouldn't brag - you have been forced to conform to a society that will never accept you for who you really are.

those are people who learned writing from righties who didn't understand. they were made to pull the pen across the page by curling their whole arm around, instead of sitting normally and pushing the pen.

oh i just realised i text left-handed as well.

I'm right handed but I hold phones/microphones/my bag with my left hand or shoulder, oddly.

i'm a lefty. lots of people comment on it when they see me write.

I'm always surprised that it's even a thing. It's not like anyone says, "Wooow...so you've got blue eyes, huh. That's kinda interesting." No. But handedness is a thing.

It's not like anyone says, "Wooow...so you've got blue eyes, huh. That's kinda interesting."

that's not entirely true. I've gotten that from the occasional person, generally after they have asked if I'm wearing colored contacts.

*waving my left hand in the air*

my lefty-ness only becomes problematic when using binders and spiral-bound notebooks.

Try turning the notebook upside down, that's what I do.

you're all freaks

xpost...yep, I start all my notebooks from the back, upside down. I gave up on binders altogether.

FREAKS AHOY

http://myownrevolution.me/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/obama-lefty.jpg

helps explain why he's such a bad bowler.

I never notice whether other people are lefties or righties. When people make a comment about my lefthandedness I mentally peg them as a boring moron. There are more interesting things about me, I think, like LOOK! MY HAIR IS LONGER THAN IT WAS THE LAST TIME YOU SAW ME!!! OH WOW!!!

Actually, my hair has been the same length for about 15 years, but people still will comment. It used to be short. God I'm incredible. MY HAIR GROWS!!!

clinton and both bushes are lefties as well iirc

I am awesome and also left handed and shit. I use it to draw pictures and earn money.

I play tennis and punch people and play guitar with my right hand though, or at least I would if I did any of those things, but I think that's just protecting my assets.

i like people a little more if i notice they're left handed

^ me too!

Same here. Then we do lefty handshake.

I am mostly leftie

left:
writing, table tennis, pool, snooker, pointing at stuff, eating, doing fiddly footery intricate things

right:
tennis, golf, bowling, punching, anything requiring strength (wrecked my left arm as a child)

I think I said this on another thread where we discussed "true" handedness: I think some things people consider right-handed are actually left-handed - like playing guitar - I think it makes more sense to have your more dexterous hand on the fretboard. Also eating - like ailsa upthread, I hold my fork/spoon in my left hand and see no reason to switch it to my right when I use a knife so people would see me as eating right-handed.

i like people a little more if i notice they're left handed

otm - we exchange knowing "yes we are smarter and more creative and don't mention Ned Flanders!" looks.

i think of them as comrades in the lefty army

sigh there really was a lefthanders shop in soho, london, until it closed a few years ago - i used to have a great faux-boxing sweatshirt from them that had 'Lefty' written on it

i find 'cutting out' v. difficult with right-handed scissors

h8 cutting, i am terrible with both righty and lefty scissors.

Addenda inspired by others upthread - if I were to punch someone, it would be with my left hand, but I would slap someone with my right hand. I hold drinking glasses/mugs in my right hand. I play golf right-handed. I point and give rude hand gestures equally comfortably with either.

I went left-handed with beers after I stopped smoking. Before that it was always ciggie on the left and pint on the right - not that that is possible in these draconian broken Britain nanny police state enlightened smoke-free pub times.

piano - no such thing as a left-handed piano, just gotta deal.
It would make my day to discover that boogie-woogie piano was invented by lefties (or whatever style of piano music I am thinking of which involves lots of fast arpeggios in the bass and some occasional two-note chord stabs for the right hand).

I guess guitar handedness dates from the age of intricate classical/flamenco fingerpicking or something; wonder if it's begun to shift now plectrums and strumming are the thing. That said when I first started out I tried both ways round and couldn't make the other work at all (I'm righthanded so should probably get off yr thread), not that I ever got good at it either way.

I think "sinister" became the Latin for "portentous of bad things" from meaning "left" because they used to read fortunes from things like the flight patterns of birds, and birds on yr left was bad news, stuff on the right was cool. Wouldn't like to declare whether lefthanded = bad was cause or effect with regards to this association, however.

those little chairs in seminar rooms/lecture theatres, where the tray table folds up on the right. fuck them. making me sit at the end of the row in the special chair.

i hate those desks! propping up elbow with knee to avoid writing fatigue: DUD

Everyone I know who is left-handed uses their comnputer mouse with their right hand.

That's eerie for some reason.

i am left handed and have always used the mouse right-handed
there seemed to be no other way

Once someone reacted to this observation by saying, "That's because they want to masturbate with their left hand while they use the mouse with their right hand." Somehow, that didn't seem correct!

I'm a lefty.

I use my mouse with my left hand at home and with my right hand at work. Mostly because that's the easiest way to do it without buying an extension cord for my mouse.

I always wished I was left handed cause it's supposed to mean youre more creative or something.

In year 12 music class of only about 8 or 9 students, only 2 were right handed, so go figure.

Bart Simpson is left handed, I noticed.