Re: Etymology of "Sinister

On 2009-01-23 08:25:12 -0800, tony cooper <tony_cooper213@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> said:

On Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:52:44 -0800, C J Campbell
<christophercampbell@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 2009-01-23 06:13:10 -0800, tony cooper <tony_cooper213@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> said:

On Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:06:26 -0600, "HEMI - Powered"
<none@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

So, you can imagine my surprise when I saw that President Obama not
only signs things like Executive Orders with his left hand, but
even uses the over-the-top writing style that traces it's origins
to the pen-and-ink days where penmanship students needed to keep
their hand from smearing the ink as then moved across the paper.

Draw your own conclusions from this, of course. And, Happy TGIF!

Wrong again, Jerry. The over-the-top writing position of the
left-hander caused *more* smearing, not less. That's the natural way
we left-handers start writing. I know, because I'm left-handed, I
started writing that way, and I learned to write with a stick pen at a
school desks with built-in inkwells.

The over-the-top style drags the hand or the cuff or the arm over the
fresh, wet ink of the previous lines. Not so much the line being
written, but the lines above it.

The other problem of the over-the-top style is that the pen nibs
punctured and tore the paper and caused ink to splatter because the
nibs were held too vertical.

I don't write that way anymore. I print everything except my
signature, and that's illegible.

What is odd about Obama is that he wears his wrist-watch on his left
hand. Most left-handers wear their wrist-watch on their right hand.

I wear my wristwatch on my left wrist, not my hand. :-) So do most
other southpaws I know. It is too hard to change the time and date and
work the stopwatch buttons if the watch is on the right wrist.

That's different from my experience. It's almost a parlor trick to be
able to recognize the left-hander by noticing the wrist-watch on the
right wrist. Also, I can't imagine changing the date or the time
without taking the wrist-watch off. My regular watch - a Rolex -
doesn't have stopwatch buttons, but the watch I wear when scuba diving
does and I wear it on my right wrist.

Pilots may be different. Some of them wear their watch with the dial
on the underside of the wrist so they can see the face without turning
the wrist. My flight instructor did so.


Military men who used swords and maces hated left-handed people. Boxers
still do.

Castles were designed for the right-handed. The stairs curved to
enable the right-handed defender to advance sword-first.

The reason the military still encourages people to shoot right handed
is because of problems with shells being ejected from the breech.

If you've served in the military, and been on the rifle range, you'll
know that "encouraged" is not a strong enough word. Range officers
and non-coms would cuss out their grandmothers for the slightest
thing. I think that a full and complete knowledge of all possible
forms of profanity and insults is a requirement for that job.

Of course, that's the "old" Army.

Haha. I was Air Force, and an officer at that. We were never allowed near a rifle. I think if I had picked up an M-16 that some kindly NCO would have immediately thrown me to the ground, yelling "Don't EVER touch that, sir!" Or something like that.

No, we had .38 specials and we all had to qualify both left and right handed with them. Not even a Colt .45. Sheesh.

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Etymology of "Sinister
    ... left-hander caused *more* smearing, not less. ... we left-handers start writing. ... Most left-handers wear their wrist-watch on their right hand. ... work the stopwatch buttons if the watch is on the right wrist. ...
    (rec.photo.digital)
  • Re: Etymology of "Sinister
    ... The over-the-top writing position of the ... left-hander caused *more* smearing, not less. ... Most left-handers wear their wrist-watch on their right hand. ... work the stopwatch buttons if the watch is on the right wrist. ...
    (rec.photo.digital)
  • FS: Lots of manuals for WMS pinballs
    ... Prices do not include shipping. ... Junk Yard (wear on cover) $15 ... Monster Bash PRELIM FINAL (these were made for internal use at WMS ... Cirqus Voltaire (small writing on cover) $20 ...
    (rec.games.pinball)
  • Re: Apologies and sympathy to Hopeless
    ... Ick ick. ... UV would *never* wear a big, ... So when writing posts here, ... I rather prefer the fat nerd slob myself, but taste is no more than ...
    (misc.writing)
  • Re: sarcasm & irony [WAS: "to see a man about a dog"]
    ... You could always tell a left-hander even when he or she wasn't using a ... Nuns, traditionally, greatly oppose left-handed writing. ... blows to the back of the hand with the brass edge of a wooden ruler. ...
    (alt.usage.english)