If you're a lefty you're sinister according to the Latin.
Oh yes, us poor left handers. If memory serves me right David Downes and Ray Fean are left handed. I'm sure that has
been mentioned. A long time ago when Lisa K had her forum this topic came up. Quite a few posts, I remember regarding
left handed people. A few lines from back then:
Hi Aimee,
I’m left handed too. I don’t why you titled this “What’s wrong with being left handed?”
It seems so natural. I’m proud I’m left handed. I’m both artistic and analytical. I have seen left handed people
write with their hand curved, it actually looks painful to me. I write like a right handed person would write, just with the left hand.
But you do have to adapt. Right handed people take so much for granted. There are so many things in everyday life that are made for right handed people.
You can start by looking at the mouse for your computer.
I did a little research:
I just learned a new Irish word.
Ciotóg
Ciotóg is an Irish word used to describe left-handed people, which also means 'strange person' Isn’t David left handed? LOL. I think Ray Fean may be too.
In his book Right-Hand, Left-Hand, Chris McManus of University College London, argues that the proportion of left-handers is rising and left-handed people
as a group have historically produced an above-average quota of high achievers. He says that left-handers' brains are structured differently in a way that
widens their range of abilities, and the genes that determine left-handedness also govern development of the language centers of the brain.
McManus says that the increase could produce a corresponding intellectual advance and a leap in the number of mathematical, sporting, or artistic geniuses.
Take that you right handed people. LOL.
There are many theories on how being left-handed affects the way a person thinks. One
theory divides left- and right-handed thinkers into two camps: visual simultaneous vs. linear sequeential.
According to this theory, right-handed people are thought to process information using a "linear sequential" method in which one thread
must complete its processing before the next thread can be started.
Left-handed persons are thought to process information using a "visual simultaneous" method in which several threads can be processed simultaneously.
Another way to view this is such: Suppose there were a thousand pieces of popcorn and one of them was colored pink. The right-handed person — using
the linear sequential processing style — would look at the popcorn one at a time until they encountered the pink one. The left-handed person would spread
out the pieces of popcorn and visually look at all of them to find the one that was pink.
A side effect of these differing styles of processing is that right handed persons need to complete one task before they can start the next.
Left-handed people, by contrast, are capable and comfortable switching between tasks. Left-handed people may have an excellent ability to multi-task.
Perhaps the anecdotal evidence that suggests they are more creative stems from this ability to multi-task.
Right-handed people process information using "analysis", which is the method of solving a problem by breaking it down to its pieces and analyzing the pieces
one at a time. By contrast, left-handed people process information using "synthesis", which is the method of solving a problem by looking at the whole and trying
to use pattern-matching to solve the problem.
The hypothesis that left-handed people are predisposed to visual-based thought been validated by a variety of evidence.
So Aimee don’t feel bad you’re left handed. We may be a little bit long winded too. Oh well…
Lester