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RE: [DisTexters] Handedness in fiction
My answers are inside the text.
handedness genetically or socially determined?
Genetically determined. They studied tools of early man which lead
folks to believe that he was left-handed. Lefties have better survival
rates in the natural world. Their brains can reconnect and retool
better than a right handed. Later when handedness wasn't needed for
survival, more right handers survived. Later, it became a dominant
gene. Then handedness became socially determined and then right
handedness became needed for survival. They burned lefties during the
Middle Ages for being servants of the Devil.
****
So in a sense it is a mixture of both genetics and culture, right?
Which reminds me: it's interesting to note that the word "right" itself has
become synonymous with "correct".
----> RIGHT!
However, in
the U.S., if you use both hands, you have to choose to be right handed
for purposes of education.
****
What?! I thought that stuff ended in the 1960s! My best friend is
ambidextrous and he didn't have that problem in our public school career
(1980-1993). He did notice at an early age, however, that writing with his
right hand was more comfortable for him, so maybe that had something to do
with it? Every now and then though he'd switch back to writing with his
left hand, but he mostly wrote with his right and I don't remember anyone
ever pressuring him to be right handed. (Maybe because he usually wrote
with his right?)
My grandfather was left handed and he used to get hit by the nuns for
writing with his left hand. He was stubborn though and resisted, until he
broke his left arm when he fell climbing a tree. He learned to write with
his right hand, and after that he felt it wasn't worth the struggle fighting
the nuns.
My mother felt some stigma growing up as a leftie. Some kids would look at
her funny when she would write with her left hand, and teachers would say on
the first day of school, "Oh, you are one of THOSE." And it was a pain for
her in uni sitting at those desks that were designed to support right elbows
and arms. On the other hand (pun intended), she is extremely talented
musically, while her right handed siblings are not, and her left handedness
might have something to do with that.
Virginia, did you face any stigma growing up as a leftie?
-----> Actually, the stress to write right-handed is alive and well in the U.S at least in the South. I am self taught in cursive writing. The teacher sat me in a corner with a writing booklet and told me to teach myself. My handwriting is really bad but I can print really well. ;)
Stigma? Well, most of the folks in my family are lefties, so we provided a united front to a right-handed world. But, I got laughed at for doing everything backwards and being clumsy.
BTW, President Gerald Ford, a famous lefty, was stigmatized because his natural inclination was to turn left, a no-no in international protocol. You have turn right, look right, etc. Reagan and Bush got around this by having the Secret Service position themselves to that they couldn't turn left and had to turn right. If you watch old film of them, you can see how they turn then 'right' themselves.
****
My son uses both hands but was told to write
with his right hand so his speech would be clear. Speech difficulties
and left-handiness go hand in hand. :)
****
So I'm assuming he has or had speech difficulties? I can understand the
thought processes behind the suggestion- the writing encourages fine motor
control signals in the left brain, which also controls speech and movement.
But to tell someone they HAVE to is just wrong.
--------> I know. But it was explained that if he used both hands, his brain would be mixed up.
Yours in Leftness,
Virginia, unreconstructed leftie.
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