Righty, lefty, ambidextrous?

[RedAngie]

OP left out the option for whatever this is called.

 

[Meriweather]

right handed for sure.

MIL is a lefty
DH is a lefty
DS is a righty
DD is a righty
DGD is a lefty

 

[rastahomie]

Oh good lort, I can't even hold a pencil in my left hand.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

OP left out the option for whatever this is called.

That is called having tons of time to practice.

 

[ronandannette]

I'm right-handed for sure. My left hand is useless. I don't even like holding my phone up to my ear with my left hand.

Yep - totally left-brain dominant in my aptitudes and right-handed to the extreme. The most awkward thing I have to do is hold the knife in my right hand and fork in my left to cut food and then switch the fork to my right hand to pick it up and eat it. (I've tried to "fork" with my left, honest I have - it just doesn't work.)

 

[Sabeking]

Lefty! When I write either my paper is turned horizontal or my hand is in a strange position. The only thing I do right handed is cut.

 

[Micca]

Oh good lort, I can't even hold a pencil in my left hand.

Or a keyboard for that matter

 

[jevs]

Right.

 

[godders]

I write left-handed and have my hand under my writing so I've never got ink marks. I can write also over the top like other lefties. I also bat and bowl left-handed in cricket.

My right hand throws the ball, uses scissors and chops vegetables.

I can switch between hands and play equally well in ten pin bowling, rounders, golf (including mini).


Some of my older colleagues who went to Catholic school were beaten for using their lefts and had their left arms tied behind their backs to force them to use their right . Let's just say I'm very glad to have been growing up a leftie when I did!

 

[Bilberry]

I'm right handed but don't have to much trouble using my left hand for tasks. I guess as examples, my writing is better right handed but I'm able to write left handed. With tennis I serve right handed but am able to serve left handed. You wouldn't want to be my doubles partner if I was serving left handed though. Accuracy isn't worked out.

I suspect the use of the off hand come from piano lessons at a young age, but don't know.

 

[design_mom]

I am mostly right handed, but I can do most things with my left hand if I need to. I also prefer to do some things with my left hand that many people do with their right (like use the mouse).

My son is left handed but doesn't usually have too much trouble. One thing that he did that used to amaze me was play the Guitar Hero video game. You have to press buttons on the neck of the guitar "controller" when the colored lights on the screen hit a certain area. (You also have to strum, but that is the easy part.) My son would hold the controller upside down so he could press the buttons with his left hand. This meant that the light at the far right of the screen, which corresponded to the button at the far end of the neck of the guitar, would be on the far left as he was holding his controller. There was a setting in the game where you could flip-flop the screen (a lefty mode, so to speak) but my son didn't like playing that way. He would prefer to translate it in his mind. And he was GOOD at the game. I was shocked.

 

[rastahomie]

Or a keyboard for that matter

It's an inside joke between me and Mrs. Homie. When she was a little girl she knew an old church lady who would say "Oh Good Lort!" whenever she was agitated. Couldn't pronounce the D at the end.

 

[NFLDERS]

What you describe is cross-dominance - dominant hand for different things. Ambidextrous is the ability to use the right and left hands equally well.

I can write with both hands (probably not equally) but do certain things left handed and certain things right handed. I throw a ball right handed but cannot do so left handed. I am left hand dominant in lacrosse. Bowl left handed. Hockey left handed. Golf right handed. Eat left handed.

What I was describing in my earlier post is that for instance, my husband uses both hands, each with a screw driver in it at the same time!

 

[sarahann77]

I'm mostly right handed. Do a few things with left. In kindergarten they thought I was lefty, but had they asked me it was due to getting stuck with the lefty scissors which I didn't know that only knew it didn't work in the right hand.

Never occurred to me until someone else mention above, but I only talk on the phone with my left hand. Feels odd in the right.

Having a bought of tendinitis in the right wrist lately I've had to do more things with the left so found some limitations there - cutting a squash is a definite right only unless I want to lose a finger.

 

[Magpie]

I need an "other" option!

Apparently I started off reaching for things with my left hand, so my mother made a point of putting everything in my right hand.

I think I probably fit the "cross dominance" description. Most things I use my right, but I do use my left for stuff like opening jars, etc. And I'm pretty decent at using my left hand to paint the nails on my right hand - sometimes they turn out better than the nails on my left!

More interestingly, I completely lack any internal sense of left and right. I really can't tell the difference, but people assure me that there is one. Me, I have to check the writer's callous on my right hand, to figure out which is my right. If I don't check, I can't tell. (My drill sergeant actually wrote R and L on the toes of my boots, when I was a Reservist.)

 

[Magpie]

I write left-handed and have my hand under my writing so I've never got ink marks. I can write also over the top like other lefties. I also bat and bowl left-handed in cricket.

My right hand throws the ball, uses scissors and chops vegetables.

I can switch between hands and play equally well in ten pin bowling, rounders, golf (including mini).


Some of my older colleagues who went to Catholic school were beaten for using their lefts and had their left arms tied behind their backs to force them to use their right . Let's just say I'm very glad to have been growing up a leftie when I did!

My 19yo son is a lefty. He doesn't write over the top, he just angles his paper the other way.

Junior kindergarten intake interview, I made sure to tell his teacher, but she kind of brushed me off, saying, "We'll see. He's so young, his handedness isn't set yet." (Yes, he was three, but he'd been consistently grabbing for things with his left since infancy.) Then one day when I was volunteering in his kindergarten class, I saw him trying to write with his pencil in his right hand... and using his left to move it like a joystick! When I asked him why he didn't just hold his pencil in his left hand, he said he wasn't allowed. So I went and had a word with his teacher, who protested that, "He's young, he can change!"

I made it VERY clear to her that she was not to try to change his handedness, and if I saw or heard anything like this again, I'd be having a word with the principal.

I'd like to think that the whole "force them to write with their right" thing is gone the way of the dinosaurs, but I'm not so sure any more. Fortunately, at least, it's not official policy any more!

 

[godders]

My 19yo son is a lefty. He doesn't write over the top, he just angles his paper the other way.

Junior kindergarten intake interview, I made sure to tell his teacher, but she kind of brushed me off, saying, "We'll see. He's so young, his handedness isn't set yet." (Yes, he was three, but he'd been consistently grabbing for things with his left since infancy.) Then one day when I was volunteering in his kindergarten class, I saw him trying to write with his pencil in his right hand... and using his left to move it like a joystick! When I asked him why he didn't just hold his pencil in his left hand, he said he wasn't allowed. So I went and had a word with his teacher, who protested that, "He's young, he can change!"

I made it VERY clear to her that she was not to try to change his handedness, and if I saw or heard anything like this again, I'd be having a word with the principal.

I'd like to think that the whole "force them to write with their right" thing is gone the way of the dinosaurs, but I'm not so sure any more. Fortunately, at least, it's not official policy any more!

Oh my! The poor thing! Very lucky you were able to pick up on it. That is just awful especially in this day and age!

 

[LJSquishy]

I'm a lefty and do everything with my left hand except I bat right-handed. I use scissors in my left hand but do not use left-handed scissors.
I see a lot of votes for ambidextrous...but I'm doubting that! If you do not write/catch/throw/etc equally well with both hands, you're not ambidextrous. I "can" write with my right hand, and "can" throw with my right hand but I'm not ambidextrous!

 

[Sanchez]

The DIS never fails to impress. At this point 30% claim ambidextrous though statistically fewer than 1% actually are. DIS exceptionalism is not to be denied.

Look younger than you actually are? Claim to have a high IQ? Top 1% SAT scores? You are just one of many defying the odds!

 

[Magpie]

The DIS never fails to impress. At this point 30% claim ambidextrous though statistically fewer than 1% actually are. DIS exceptionalism is not to be denied.

Look younger than you actually are? Claim to have a high IQ? Top 1% SAT scores? You are just one of many defying the odds!

1. It's self selecting. If you ARE ambidextrous, you're far more likely to post about it and vote, than if you're just boringly right handed. Heck, only 12 percent of the world's population is left handed. 24 percent of the poll respondents claim to be lefties. Do you think they're lying, in order to make themselves feel special, too?

2. It's too small a sampling to accurately represent any large population. 30% is well within the margin of error when we've got just 50 people responding.

3. There's likely some confusion about what ambidextrous actually means. Most people use their left hand for some activities, despite being primarily right handed.

Edited to add: It's the same for most other topics like this. Feeling unattractive and aging quickly? Well, geez, you're not going to be opening a thread about looking younger than your age! Got average scores on the SAT? No point posting about it, is there?