Left handed - affliction or no big deal?

One more question - does your foot match your hand? For example naturally - the Mrs and Son are right footed, they swing a bat right handed and my son plays the Guitar right handed, shoots a basketball lefthanded and plays golf and tennis lefthanded.

I've always hear lefties are more intelligent than righties, they are more creative and more adept.

Now you're making me feel stupid - LOL

Absolutely true, Misti !!!!!

Lefthanded
Come to think of it, I tie my shoes backwards, and hold playing cards backwards - my mother taught me, and she was a lefty. She was lucky, though - her mother started her in school with a firm command to the teachers *not* to force her to use her right hand. At that time the idea of letting children use their left hands was unheard of.

Perhaps the reason that some people think of lefties are cleverer is that they must either learn to use both hands or devise ingenious approaches to living and working in a righthanded world.

No tomK, we just "ARE"!

Heehee. Of course!

In first grade I wasn't "forced" to use one hand or the other, but I was forced to have my paper lie at the same angle on my desk as the right-handed students. (Why? I have no idea... I just remember the teacher walking up and down the aisles. She reminded me of the Three Blind Mice because she wore dark glasses and couldn't see well... but I digress.) That taught me how to write upside down, which I still do. It is an unfortunate trait, but I live with it.

Wish I knew how to write........

I'm a righty, but everybody tells me I tie my shoes backward also. I don't know what they're talking about. If it works, why quibble?

I voted for ambi- but that isn't quite (um) right. I throw or bat (and
strike out) right-handed but I write left. I can use a tool like a hammer pretty much with equal ineptitude with either hand.
I was astounded at the small and unscientific poll you are doing.
I remember hearing a story on NPR at least a couple of years ago saying that the actual incidence of left-handedness in the US is, in fact, 17%!
I was one of (I hope) the last students encouraged to tie my left hand behind my back and "learn" to be a righty. Did anyone else experience that?

How's this for reviving a VERY old thread. I was looking for something else. Did you happen to hear the story on NPR to the effect that lefties (13% of the world's population) should be going extinct, but we keep hanging in there. The story started with why we were born lefties (something about pre-birth stress) but then got into the notion that, in cultures that have a history of violence, left-handed warriors have a higher survival rate.
The story never really explained how the trait might or might not be inherited...

Revive us again, Virginia John. I may have already said this, but south paws were considered evil, hence the word sinister.

My daughter is ambidextrous, and all she does is write with her left hand. My brother was a lefty, also.

Lefties might do so well in combat because they attack from a different angle than righties are accustomed to.

I'm a lefty. But do things generally well with both hands.

I have found that us "lefties" are more creative, artistic than right handed people.

Of course you lefties have heard that we are the only one in our right minds haven't ya?

Yall probably know that the word "southpaw" is associated with baseball. Did you ever wonder why?
Basebal fields are laid out such that the batter, at home plate, faces to the east. That way the sun in an afternoon game would not be in the batter's eyes. A left-handed pitcher's throws would hence come from the first-base (or south) side. The success of southpaw pitchers is probably related to their relative scarcity in the population and to, as edgar opined, the angle of attack.
I write left-handed but that's about it. Somethings, like wielding a utility knife (against cardboard, not enemies) I can do with either hand.

I had a friend in middle school who was a leftie. He had a shirt, which he wore proudly, that said:

All of us are born right handed... only the greatest can overcome it.

I'm the only left handed person in my entire family.

My husband and his siblings are all right handed, born of two left handed parents.

Now does that make any sense? lol

People have the misconception that left handed people are more creative (because the right brain controls the left side of the body and vice-versa.)

Of course, motor control is completely unrelated to creativity levels (and this has been proven), but you lefties can take advantage of it.

There was even a really bad art movement where teachers made everyone draw with their left hand, to get in their "creative brain." Very frustrating due to lack of motor skills in that hand, and potentialy psychologically damaging, according to some study I read.

- the right-handed artist.

I have a left handed brother. He is about equal intelligence and ability to his right handed brothers and sisters.

Funny, very funny edgar. Your left-handed brother is "about (of) equal intelligence..." Talk about a left-handed compliment.
I have a 1980 Random House dictionary I sometimes refer to to see how meanings of words have changed. Under left-handed: "Ambiguous, doubtful, clumsy, awkward."
Oops, sorry, I just knocked over my coffee onto the mousepad. I'm sure that never happens to righties. (insert smiley face here but rjb doesn't know how to do that; he's a lefty, doncha know).