Left-handed president

Congratulations to Barack Obama who will be the fifth US president out of seven to be left handed!

Did you know that Al Gore is also left handed? So this would have meant the sixth out of seven, had he won back in 2000.

More on left-handed tennis players

The more I read about tennis, the more left handed players I hear about.

I didn't see the new Wimbledon junior champion, Laura Robson, play this year but it turns out she is also left handed. And so is Jamie Murray (Andy Murray's brother) who won the mixed doubles last year at Wimbldeon.

So being left is alright, after all. I always suspected it was.

A left handed Wimbledon champ!

Left-handed player, Rafael Nadal, thwarted Roger Federer's attempt to win his fifth Wimbledon title. Interestingly, back in 1980, Bjorn Borg failed to secure his fifth title by being beaten by the left-handed John McEnroe.

• Other famous left handers include Rod Laver, Jimmy Connors, Roscoe Tanner, Goran Ivanisevic, Greg Rudesksi, Martina Navratilova, Monica Seles, and Ann Jones - Britain's only left-handed Wimbldeon champion.

• The 1950s American Wimbledon champion, Little Mo Connolly, was left handed but persuaded by her coach to switch and play as a right hander.

• From 1974-1984, all the men's singles winners of the US Open were left handed.

Left handers rule at The White House

In my last post, I mentioned that the next president of the US will be a left hander. I discovered today that Al Gore is left handed, too. So, if Dubya hadn't become president, there would have been 32 years of uninterrupted left-handed rule at The White House. Because Ford, Reagan, Bush Snr and Clinton were all left handed. Trust Bush Jnr to spoil things....

BTW, Reagan wrote with his right hand as he was forced to switch as a child (as happened regularly in those days) but he was actually a lefty. As was Winston Churchill.

Left handed president

Unless something unforeseen happens, the next president of the US will be left handed, as both Obama and McCain are southpaws.

Four of the last five US presidents have been left handers and soon it will be five out of six. Now that's far higher than the average. Only one in 12 people is left handed. Pure coincidence or a demonstration of the fact that left handers are naturally superior??

Left-handed illustrators

I'm part way through an evening class on how to illustrate children's books. In last night's class I noticed that, out of 10 students, three of us were left handed. Far higher than the national average of 12% but not surprising considering it's an art course and so calls on the creative, right-hand side of the brain.

What was interesting, however, was that one member of the class - who is right handed - decided part way through the lesson that she could draw better with her left hand. So there are now four of us who are southpaws.

This prompted our teacher (right handed) to say how, at art college, the right handers were encouraged to draw with their left hands and the lefties encouraged to practise with their right hands. The theory being that the hand unused to holding a pencil would be more sensitive.

I gave it a go but, erm, it'll be a while before I turn into the next Landseer. He was the artist who could simultaneously draw a stag with one hand and a horse with the other! Try writing different things simultaneously with both hands - nigh on impossible - let alone draw!

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 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.

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. :)

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.