One more thought about left-handedness

[conuly]

I frequently tell people that I only do two things righty - pick my nose, and masturbate. This is technically untrue. I also use a righty can opener. (And a righty mouse, but that's because I need more precision to type one handed than I do to mouse.)

However, the evolution of my using a righty can opener with my right hand took literally years. Years of my trying to make it work with my left hand before I finally accepted that this was not a thing that was going to happen. That was followed by another three or four years of my picking up the can opener with my left hand, setting it up, trying to use it lefty, and then going "No, Connie, try the other hand". Every time. For years. 2 - 3 times a week I open a can of tomatoes and a can of tomato paste to make something for dinner. And every time - left hand, try, stop, switch hands, very awkwardly open it righty. (And even now, I can only manage it with a good quality can opener. Crappy ones are a complete no-go.)

I have considered getting a lefty can opener, but in the end decided that the situation is bad enough with the girls using my scissors, I don't want them awkwardly using my can opener as well.

So on last week's episode of The Flash, we were informed that righties on E1 are lefties on E2 and vice versa. This is bullshit for so many reasons, and the villain had to be bluffing, but she "proved" Cisco was right handed by throwing something at him and he caught it in his right hand.

I was pretty surprised when a lot of people reacted with "How does that prove anything? You threw it at his right side, of course he caught it with his right hand!" Is this a thing people do? I mean, I might try to catch something with my right hand if it was coming waaaaaaaay over on the right and I had to lean... but I'd be more likely to just let it drop, to be honest. (I don't tend to catch things.) In the scene shown, if I really felt I had to catch it, I'm pretty sure I'd use both hands. (Gotta test this one out.)

But my handedness is pretty strongly lefty. In the Kinsey scale of handedness, I'm all the way at the far end. (Also, cross-dominance is a thing. It's not at all unusual to use one hand for fine motor tasks and the other for gross motor tasks, or to be flexible with handedness for some things but not others. Nobody seems to know this, but it's the truth, and I wish we could get this into the heads of parents and early-education teachers.)

Comments

[zhelana]

I catch with my left hand because I throw with my right hand and when I learned to throw and catch I was playing baseball, so I had a mitt on my left hand to catch with so that I could throw with my right hand.

[ironed_orchid]

Just after reading this, I went to the kitchen where I opened a jar with my left hand. As a right handed person, this is one of the few things I do exclusively with my left hand, which I suspect is because the muscles in my right hand are developed for fine motor tasks.

I also usually hold cups in my left hand, but that's a habit I developed when I was a smoker, and held a cigarette in my right hand.

[conuly]

That's a fairly usual way to have cross dominance with one specific task - which leads everybody to the question "How much is it that we prefer a certain hand because we're better with it, and how much is it that we're better with that hand because we prefer it?"

No answers are forthcoming.

[andrewducker]

If someone threw a ball at my left side, I'd pivot or side-step and then use my right hand.

[conuly]

That's what I assumed was the default until I saw that comment thread!

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

Wow, you are as lefty as I am righty. I can button a coat one-handed with my left, but that's because the buttons are made the right way for my fingers to hook the holes. Almost anything else is right.

[sporks5000.livejournal.com]

"I frequently tell people that I [...] masturbate."

-Connie

[conuly]

Well, it's not exactly a big secret.

[dandelion.livejournal.com]

I am extremely right-handed...but I can open a can with whichever hand, because I grew up with a left handed can opener. I can barely do anything else with my left hand.