The perfect gift for a left hander

How many times are you stuck for ideas on what to get a friend or relative for their birthday or Christmas present? Well, if your hard-to-buy-for friend or relative is a southpaw, then it's easy!

Here are ten items just for starters that any left hander will be glad to receive:

• fountain pen
• watch
• scissors
• computer mouse
• keyboard
• wallet or purse
• ruler
• tape measure
• pencil sharpener
• Swiss army knife

And if they are sporty, then there are left-handed golf clubs, fishing rod reels, bowling shoes, cricket gloves, ice hockey sticks and baseball gloves.

If they ever venture into the kitchen, they'll be pleased to be given a left-handed bread knife or vegetable knife, potato peeler, can opener or corkscrew.

Keen gardeners would love left-handed secateurs or edging shears. Painters would give their left arm for a left-handed artist's palette. And don't forget there are also playing cards, guitars and notebooks designed especially for left handers.

If you're looking for a gift for a child, there are boomerangs, stationery sets and activity kits to choose from, not to mention junior golf clubs.

Still stuck for ideas?

Writing left handed

We left handers naturally draw lines from right to left and draw circles anti clockwise so, not surprisingly, we form our letters differently. But I wonder how many left-handed children are taught to form their letters the left-handed way? I certainly wasn't. And we didn't have left-handed scissors in the classroom, either.

As an adult, I now have a left-handed ruler (so I can measure right to left - the natural way for me) and a left-handed pencil sharpener (so I can sharpen a pencil anti clockwise, and have the shavings fall away from me and into the bin rather than over my hand, as is the case when I have to use a right handed sharpener in my left hand).

This anticlockwise thing means I get some strange looks. The other day I was table moderator at a networking lunch and organised the distribution of business cards so they went round the table in an anticlockwise direction. I didn't consiously go 'the other way' on purpose, it's just the way that seemed to me to be natural. Anyhow, it seemed to confuse the hell out of everyone.

Just like if I hand over my cheque book or paying in book to a right handed person in my bank. They can't seem to work out which way up or which way round they go. They'd be totally confused within about five minutes if they had to live in a left-handed world.

Right, left, right, left

The more I find out about which tasks left handers use which hand for, the more confused I get about what 'being left handed' actually means. For instance, my hairdresser cuts paper with scissors in his left hand but holds the scissors in his right hand to cut hair.

A friend I saw over the weekend writes left handed but does virtually everything else right handed. Just like my niece and just like Bill Gates. And Martina Navratilova does everything with her left hand (including playing tennis) except write.

I am left handed, left footed, left eyed, left eared. So I look through the view finder of a camera with my left eye, I hold a phone to my left ear etc etc. Just about the only thing I do right handed is wear my watch on my left wrist. And that's probably because, when I had my first watch, my mother strapped it on my left wrist for me.

But it seems that many of my fellow southpaws are fairly dual handed. If you do some tasks with one hand and some with another, I'd love to hear from you.

Left-handed compliment?

Those of us who are left handed have a rum lot. Look at how derogatory the terms to do with 'left' and 'left handed' are.

You pay someone a 'left-handed compliment’ when you’re concealing an insult. If you’re not picked for something, you’re ‘left out’. If you can’t dance, you have ‘two left feet’. Here in England, left handers are often described as ‘cack handed’ – ‘cack’ meaning excrement.

And it's not just in English that left has negative connotations :

Latin for ‘left’ is ‘sinister’. In French, left is ‘gauche’ which also means ‘awkward’ or ‘clumsy’. In German, ‘links’ (left) is also synonymous with ‘awkward’ or ‘clumsy’. In Italian, left handed is ‘mancino’ which has additional meanings of ‘treacherous’ or ‘dirty’. In Spanish ‘left handed’ is ‘zurdo’. There is also a phrase ‘no ser zurdo’ which translates literally as ‘not to be left handed’ but actually means ‘to be very clever’. Similarly, Portuguese for left handed is ‘canhoto’ or ‘weak’.

It doesn’t quite seem fair does it? As those of us who are southpaws know, left handers aren’t clumsy at all – we just have to get by in a world designed for right handers. And if you're a righty and you don’t believe me, try using left-handed scissors or a left-handed can opener.

Left-handed quiz time

Instead of a blog today, here's a quiz to test left-handed knowledge:

1. Which composer was left handed?
A. Chopin
B. Liszt
C. Beethoven

2. What is the Latin for left handed?
A. dexter
B. sinister
C. leftus

3. Which of these was not left handed?
A. Grace Kelly
B. Charlie Chaplin
C. Queen Victoria

4. How many of the last seven US presidents
have been left handed?
A. 2
B. 4
C. 7

5. What are left handers called in the US?
A. linksfooters
B. gauchehands
C. southpaws

6. When is Left Handers Day?
A. August 13
B. July 9
C. April 22

7. In which game is it illegal to play left handed?
A. bowls
B. polo
C. cricket

8. In Scotland, what does an itchy left palm mean?
A. you will meet an old friend
B. you will get good luck
C. you will lose money

9. Which climbing plant twines to the left and not the right?
A. clematis
B. honeysuckle
C. rambling rose

10. What percentage of the population is ambidextrous?
A. 1%
B. 2%
C. 3%

Scroll down to see the answers



Answers

1C. Beethoven
2B. sinister
3A. Grace Kelly
4B. 4
5C. southpaws
6 A. August 13
7B. polo
8C. you will lose money
9C. honeysuckle
10A. 1%

Scores

0-3 right? Oh dear.

4-6 right? Pretty good, but you could do with a bit more 'southpaw' knowledge at your fingertips.

7-10 right? Very impressive indeed!

Cooking left handed

Lucky me; I’ve got a brand spanking new kitchen. And that means at long last the electric hob with dials on the right is in the skip. So is the microwave with its control panel on the right. I have managed to find ‘ambidextrous’ kitchen appliances which left and right handers can use with equal ease.

Mind you, I think the sales guy at Peter Jones thought I was a bit strange when he saw me dismissing cookers, ovens and the like with one swift glance.

“But it’s the latest model, madam.”

“Maybe, but the dials are on the right.”

I got the impression he’d never had a left-handed customer before…

In my search for the ‘perfect’ kitchen, I even found sinks that are designed for left handers (draining board on the other side). And best of all, I spotted a few toasters with both the controls and the lever for pushing down the bread on the front. But I have yet to find a special toaster that’s made specifically for left handers. If anyone knows of one, do tell.

So I can go and tie my right hand behind my back and still master all my new appliances. Cooking just got that much more enjoyable. :)

Left-handed trivia

• The artist, Landseer, could draw two different pictures simultaneously with his left and right hands.

• If you touch type, the word ‘stewardesses’ is typed using your left hand only.

• Cats tend to use their left paw more than their right.

• The Kerr family of Scotland had an unusually high number of left handers. They even built their castle with a staircase that spiralled the other way so they could attack with their sword in their left hands. Today, the Scottish term, kerry-fisted, means left handed.

• Tools found from Stone Age times were sharpened equally for left and right handed use. Man only developed a preference for right-handedness during the Bronze Age.

• The American term for left handers, ‘southpaw’, was coined to describe left-handed baseball pitchers. It’s now also used to refer to left-handed boxers.

• Scouts shake with their left hand, not their right.

• Lefthanders International was founded in 1975 and has 25,000 members.

• Queen Victoria, King George VI and Prince William were, or are, all left handed. Both Victoria and George VI were forced to become right handed.

• Left handers are better at reading mirror-writing than right handers.

• It’s rare for identical twins to both be left handed. If one is a lefty, the other will usually be right handed.

• Only 1% of people are truly ambidextrous.

• There is a small town in West Virginia called Left Hand.

• In ancient Egypt, it was good luck to enter a house with your left foot.

• Four of the 12 astronauts who walked on the moon were left handed. On average, 10% of people are left handed but 33.3% of the moon walkers were.

• Nearly all the characters in the Muppets were left handed.

• Left handers excel at fencing. This is mainly due to the fact that left handers are superior at judging distance and at reacting faster. Half of the world’s top fencers are left handers.

• Thanks to our heightened spatial awareness, left handers are also better at games such as tennis, badminton and squash. In fact, 40% of world’s top tennis players are left handed.

• There are more left-handed golfers in New Zealand, per head of population, than anywhere else in the world.

Left-handed men earn more!!

Now here’s an interesting fact.

A recent study carried out by Johns Hopkins University in the States concluded that left-handed men who attended college for at least a year earn 13% more than right-handed men.

And those who completed four years at college earn, on average, 21% more than similarly educated right-handed men. How weird is that?

So, do my left-handed male friends seem unusually awash with dosh? Are my right-handed male friends one-fifth poorer on pay day?

Strangely, this study found no wage differential between left- and right-handed women.

Left-handed April Fools

Three great left-handed April Fool’s jokes today.

The left-handed cappuccino
The left-handed burger
Left-handed ropes

Café chain Doppio Zero in South Africa launched a left-handed cappuccino, with a view to introducing a range of left-handed drinks and meals.

Also in South Africa, a burger chain called Steers launched a left-handed burger, redesigned so it fits more comfortably in the left hand. Apparently, the new lefty Steers burgers ‘will have all the condiments rotated 180 degrees, thereby redistributing the weight of the sandwich so that the bulk of them skew to the left’.
And get this, the spokesperson in their press release was Avril Foley….

Finally to Milton Keynes, where southpaw visitors to the Aerial Extreme outdoor adventures course can use special 'left-handed' ropes – wound anti-clockwise to give a better grip. And they even went to the lengths of producing left-handed leaflets explaining the new system, which open from left to right! The first 10 left-handers who applied before noon today (April 1) could try the course for free.

Keep ‘em coming.