Right hand or left hand?
One of the things I look for in infants is their hand preference. In my experience this does not usually begin to assert itself until about the age of 12 months, though people far more expert than me say that it shows at 6 months. Some even suggest that it is apparent in the womb. Until a preference begins to be established, the child handles everything in either hand with equal ease. Even at four years old it may not be confirmed. I have seen children start to write across a sheet with the left hand and continue with the right hand with no hesitation or difficulty or discernible difference in letter formation or size.
When I was teaching I was always aware of a child’s hand preference and made sure to seat left-handed children to the left of right-handers so that they were not bumped as they worked.
We talk of people being ‘dexterous’, meaning adept or nimble-fingered. ‘Dexter’ is Latin for right. Another synonym for dexterous is ‘adroit’, from the mid-17th century French ‘à droit’ for ‘according to right’ or ‘proper’. So we can see that it is ‘good’ and ‘proper’ to be right-handed.
Late Middle English ‘sinister’ carried the meaning of ‘malicious’ or ‘underhand’, deriving from the Latin ‘sinister’ and Old French ‘sinistre’ for left. If something is described as sinister it is assumed to be evil and better not encountered.
In Matthew 25, Jesus spoke of the Day of Judgement, when people would be separated into sheep and goats, the sheep to the right and the goats to the left, the sheep for glory, the goats for damnation.
Elsewhere in the world, in Muslim countries, the left hand is still considered dirty. It is discourteous to offer that hand to help someone or to eat with it. In modern China there are virtually no left-handers.
In the late 80s I was told that a left-handed Japanese little girl in my class educated in England and returning to Japan would have to adopt right-handed ways for calligraphy. When I queried this, the child’s mother shrugged and said, ‘I had to do it’.
Until 1950 British left-handed children were forced to use the right hand, the left hand being tied back to prevent it being used. This custom was still in use when my husband went to school, but it didn’t work for him and he remained resolutely left-handed. The practice continued until the 1970s in Canada.
‘The methods used to obtain this result were often tortuous, including tying a resistant child’s left hand to immobilise it. Typical of the reasoning to justify such practices is a 1924 letter to the British Medical Journal endorsing “retraining” of left-handers to write with their right hands, because otherwise the left-handed child would risk “retardation in mental development; in some cases…actual feeble-mindedness”. As late as 1946 the former chief psychiatrist of the New York City Board of Education, Abram Blau, warned that, unless retrained, left-handed children risked severe developmental and learning disabilities and insisted that “children should be encouraged in their early years to adopt dextrality…in order to become better equipped to live in our right-sided world”’
King George VI was naturally left-handed but forced to become right-handed. Did this contribute to his terrible stammer? It seems at least possible.
The reasons for handedness are complicated and there seem to be no definitive answers other than it is determined by genes and environment. About 50% more males than females are left-handed and 17% of twins.
The Netherlands has one of the highest incidences of left-handedness, followed by the USA and Canada, all around 13%. The UK is just below 13%.
I am intrigued by the question of hand preference. My husband and the youngest of our four children – a daughter - are left-handed. All my family, as far back as I know, were right-handed and that was the case for Barry’s family. So far, none of our grandchildren or great-grandchildren have proved to be lefties.
How many of you are left-handed?
My sister is left-handed, in a family of right-handed people. One day, in law school, I was seated at the end of a row of seats with six students in the seats next to me and noticed all were left-handed. I don't know what to make of this observation, other than to say I found it of interest....
ReplyDeleteFascinating. My husband was working with a team of the best software engineers in the world in the early 80s, the majority of whom were left-handed.
DeleteMy late father was a natural left hander but in primary school when he learned to write, the teacher smacked him every time he used his left hand. For the rest of his 90 years he continued to write with his right hand, but used his natural left hand for every other action. He never forgot the public smacking.
ReplyDeleteThat's so harsh - it's like being punished for having green eyes!
DeleteMy father is right handed for writing but left handed for drawing, I am right handed for most things, writing etc but if I am pouring liquids from one container to another, even boiling water into a coffee mug or hot water bottle, then I do it left handed. When entering numerical data in the shoe factory, I did it lefthanded because that's where the keyboard was situated. My first husband was lefthanded as were two of his siblings, my oldest grand daughter showed her left hand preference at age four months and in recent pictures of the twin grand daughters they both bring food to their mouths with their left hands so it's possible they may be left handed also.
ReplyDeleteRight hand for writing and left hand for drawing is really interesting. Leonardo da Vinci was left-handed.
DeleteI'm right handed but one of my brothers is left handed and there's LH in my late's family too.
ReplyDeleteIt was so cruel, what people did to left handers in the past (and possibly still do in some parts of the world). Very sad.
xx
The belief that left-handedness is 'wrong' is deeply entrenched is some cultures.
DeleteSuch a coincidence that you posted this today. A cousin who was visiting us a few days ago, for the first time since the pandemic began, was reminiscing about being forced to use his right hand in school in the 60s here in Canada, but it was on an army base where his father was posted and he attributed it to army discipline. He writes righthanded but plays all sports lefthanded. My brother is lefthanded but was originally discouraged from using his left hand when he started to school in the 50s. He developed a stutter and because my mother (who is also lefthanded) intervened with the teacher, he was allowed to use his preferred hand and the stuttering stopped. I am righthanded but very aware of handedness due to my family being half and half. I find it a fascinating subject. One footnote: my late father-in-law had polio as a child, causing his right hand and arm to be unusable. He had to learn to write with his left hand. He had beautiful penmanship despite that.
ReplyDeleteIt is fascinating. I always notice left-handers on television. Many US presidents have been left-handed - not sure that's a recommendation ;-)
DeleteI am right handed and my husband is left handed in everything except eating when he uses his knife and fork right handed, only because his mother laid them out the right handed way (he wasn't forced), he holds his spoon in his left hand though. Our daughter is also left handed and her eldest daughter is right handed while the youngest is left handed. My husband doesn't know of anyone in his family who were left handed. Fascinating subject.
ReplyDeleteIt is just so interesting. My left-handed daughter has two little boys but they're both right-handed, although their maternal grandfather (my husband) and paternal grandmother (her mother-in-law) are both left-handed.
ReplyDeleteMy ex husband and I are both left handed but none of our four children are, we are most disappointed. As a young child in the 60s he experienced a teacher forcing him to use his right hand, though he says it was because his writing was so untidy:-)
ReplyDeleteYou'd have thought with your odds at least one of your children would have been a leftie. Maybe the grandchildren will come up trumps!
DeleteAnother interesting post, Janice.
ReplyDeleteMy husband, who's left-handed, who learned to write in the 1950s was indeed forced to use his right hand - not sure they tied his left one back though. Nowadays, he still writes with his right hand but does everything else with his left! xxx
It is a right-handed world, but some are more affected than others. Neither my husband nor my daughter have ever needed special left-handed tools x
ReplyDeleteThis is so interesting, but also depressing that such hard methods were used to force a child against his natural inclination for no good reason. My uncle, who was an eye surgeon, taught himself to use both hands so that he did not obscure his vision when operating. (He explained this to me while carving the mealtime chicken - it did not aid my enjoyment of the meal!)
ReplyDeleteThat is so interesting. What an intelligent man - shame about the meal, though.
DeleteFour year old Charlei showed a preference early on for left hand. My grandma was ambidexterous, and I can do crossword puzzles with either hand equally the same letter formation.
ReplyDeleteAmbidexterity must be so very helpful.
DeleteI had a decided preference for my left hand until I went to school where a teacher tied my hand behind my back. These days I have troubles using my left hand for anything.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine the confusion that must have caused - dreadful.
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