Today is Left-Handers' Day, which is aimed at celebrating left-handedness and raising awareness of the problems its practitioners face in a largely right-handed world.
Q: What proportion of the population is left-handed?
A: Some 10%, including Michael Crawford, Emma Thompson, Goldie Hawn, Noel Gallagher, George Michael, and Bill Clinton.
Q: What makes some people left-handed?
A: It is to do with the
way the brain is organised. It is ''cross-wired'' so that
the left hemisphere controls the right-handed side
of the body and vice versa. The left hemisphere
(right-hand control) directs
speech, language, writing, logic, mathematics, and science. The right hemisphere (left-hand control) directs music,
art, creativity, perception, and emotions.
Q: What does that mean for left-handed people?
A: It apparently makes
them more likely to be creative. Four of the five original designers of the Macintosh computer were left-handed.
Q: But why do some people become left-handed?
A: No-one really knows. No gene for left-handedness has been identified, although it does seem to run in families. There is apparently a tendency among twins for one to be left-handed.
Q: Why are there so many right-handers?
A: Again, no-one really knows. It has been suggested that the right hand became dominant because the heart is on the left-hand side of the body. When it needed to be protected (by a shield, for instance) the defensive armoury was held in the left hand while the offensive weapon was held in the right. Left-handers believe Christianity is biased towards the right hand.
Q: Oh?
A: They maintain that there are more than 100 favourable references to the right hand and 25 unfavourable ones to the left hand in the Bible. The devil is almost always portrayed as left-handed, and it is over the left shoulder that evil spirits are said to lurk, giving rise to the superstition of throwing spilt salt over the left shoulder. There does seem to be a linguistic prejudice against left-handedness.
Q: How?
A: In Italian left-handed is mancini (crooked, maimed); in Latin it is sinister; while in other languages it also means awkward. The Scots for it, corrie-fisted, comes from the Gaelic cearr, meaning wrong or awkward, as well as left.
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