How do you know if you are left or right handed?

Now that sounds like a fairly easy question to answer. But what does mark us out as a left or right hander? My niece is 'left handed' because that's the hand she uses for writing. But in every other respect she is right handed.

And a friend told me that he throws "a ball with my left hand but kick a ball with my right foot. I bat in cricket or swing a club in golf right handed! I write with my left, yet if someone challenged me to an arm wrestle I would instinctively proffer my right".

They aren't ambidextrous, because that would mean they could do everything with both hands equally well. Are they a label that has yet to be given? Bi-handed?

I use my left hand for everything except for putting moisturiser/sun lotion on. Why that sole task? I think it's because I hold the bottle or tube in my left hand and squeeze out the sun cream into my right hand.

You can check which is your dominant hand by trying this easy test, called: How left handed are you?

Useful fact: gorillas are left handed and most cats are left pawed.

What makes us left handed?

On last Friday’s blog, I mentioned that around 10%-12% of the population is left handed. But what exactly determines which is our dominant hand? It’s not exactly known, but here are a few theories:

• A number of studies have shown that left handedness is genetic. So, if both your parents are left handed, there’s about a 50:50 chance that you will be as well. If one of your parents is left handed there’s a 20% chance you will be and if both your parents are right handed, there’s only a 2% chance that you’ll be a lefty.

• Prematurely-born babies and those with a low birth weight have a greater propensity to being left handed. This could be due to brain damage to the left hemisphere of the brain which means the right hemisphere becomes the dominant side.

• Another reason is when the mother produces high levels of the male hormone, testosterone, and passes this to her unborn child. This could be why there are more left-handed males than females.

• Left handedness occurs more frequently in identical twins. However, they aren’t usually both left handed. You’ll tend to find that, where one is left handed, the other will be right handed.

• There was a study done in Canada which showed that women aged 40+ are more than twice as likely to give birth to left-handed babies as younger mothers. This could be because older mothers are more likely to have birth complications.

Whatever the reason for left handedness, those of us who are ‘southpaws’ feel we are part of some special ‘club’. Somehow different and, of course, special. :)

Blogrolls, blogstipation and blogorrhea

As I'm new to the world of blogging, I was amused to learn the term 'blogroll'. Essentially, a list of someone's favourite blogs which they add to the sidebar of their blog.

I think the term is lost on American audiences but, here in England, we think it's jolly amusing. Hooray to the person who coined that!

I decided to find other blogging terms that were new to me. A quick search on Wikipedia turned up a whole A- W of terms. Here are my favourites.

Blaudience: The audience who reads your blog
Bleg: when you make a request to your readers, for information or contributions
Bloggies: blog awards
Bloglet: a mini blog entry, consisting of just a sentence or two
Blogorrhea: excessive, overlong blog entries (thank goodness for blogrolls)
Blogstipation: the opposite state: being unable to think of any topic to blog about. A rush of interesting events can clear this writer’s block known as a blenema
Blogistan: alternative term for the Blogosphere, or blogging community
Blogsnob: anyone who refuses to respond to comments left on their blog by people unknown to them
Flog: fake blog, ghostwritten by someone, eg in the marketing department
Gulog: when a blog is so dismal and depressing, it sounds as if it were written in a Soviet labour camp
Momosphere: blogs written by mothers ("mom" and “blogosphere”)
Splog: a blog made up mainly of spam

I know this blog is meant to be about things left handed but I thought you might enjoy some of the above terms. More left handed stuff on Friday.

Taking the plunge

'No, I'm not going to blog.' I was adamant. Firstly, I wouldn't be disciplined enough to write regular postings. Secondly, no-one would be in the slightest bit interested in reading it.

Mmmm, but 50 million + people think it's a good idea. So, I decided to dip my tentative toe into the big, wide world of blogging by reading one or two. And now, I've donned my goggles and snorkel and have plunged right in. So, come on in, the water's lovely.

Just because The Left Hander will focus on matters 'southpaw' and 'sinister' doesn't mean right handers aren't welcome into my left-handed world. I hope that left handers, right handers and the ambidextrous will read it.

Here's an interesting thing: there's a fair likelihood that the next US President will be a southpaw, as both Barack Obama and John McCain are left handed. In fact, four of the last six presidents have been left handers so, if either Obama or McCain wins, this will make it five out of seven. And, when only 10%-12% of people are left handed, that's a pretty amazing statistic.