Re: Etymology of "Sinister

Pat added these comments in the current discussion du jour ...

I don't think the swoop-around writing style of "most" lefties
has anything to do with fountain pens or ink wells. They
haven't been around since Christ was a child. It has more to do
with brain wiring and pen comfort. I have never curled my hand
around the paper and when I see other lefties do it I think "wow
that looks awkward".

Actually, it does, Pat.

When I was a small child in Catholic school, we were required to
use fountain pens with real ink in them. They allowed the kids to
print and write left-handed but those who did quickly found out
that if they kept their hands down as the right-handed kids did,
they smeared the ink as they moved from left to right across the
***. Righties don't smear because the pen itself is the left-most
part of the process. So, my friends learned to twist their wrists
so as to get their hands ABOVE the line of ink being laid down in
that characteristic form. It DID stop the ink from being smeared IF
the students not only kept the palm of the hand and wrist out of
the way but also lifted their fingers completely above the wet ink.

In today's world where roller ball ink is somewhat wet, perhaps
this technique has seen a resurgence for the same reason as over 60
years ago.

But, there IS another way: and that is for parents to recognize
EARLY tendencies to be left-handed and to encourage the child to
changeover to rightie GENTLY NOT by slapping the hands or yelling
at the child but by simply removing the object from the child's
left hand and placing it in their right hand. This works quite
well, I've seen it, and it produces NO so-called mental damage to
the growing child. If done correctly and with sensitivity, the
child will thank you later once they discover how much better they
are equipped to live in a right-handed world.

Ball point pens -- particularly cheap ones and one with edges
(such as the octagon ones) are particularly painful for lefties
to use. It also probably has something to do with righties
teaching lefties to write. When lefties write, you are pushing
against the ball, not pulling away from it. It gives you more
friction and it causes blochiness. It's just the mechanics of
the pen. I switched to liquid ink (or gel) as soon as I used
the first one I came across. I don't even bother to steal pens
from cashiers because if I come across one at home, I just throw
it out anyway.

As for watches, it's no parlor game to spot lefties by what side
they wear their watches on and it's not weird the Obama wears a
watch on his left wrist. The astonishing thing is that he wears
a watch at all. They are going the way of buggy whips now that
everyone carries a cell phone. Don't you guys have phones? Get
with the system. The only person I know who wears a watch is a
nurse who needs it for taking pulses and such. Otherwise, no
one wears one. Personally, I tried wearing one in high school
and couldn't get comfy with it on either wrist so I gave up and
haven't worn a watch since.

As for cameras, they are only right-handed because you think
they are. You have been conditioned to think that was and have
the "poor old me" syndrome. I PREFER the current set-up and
consider it to be left-handed. I much prefer to hold the weight
of the camera with my stronger arm and I much prefer to make the
minute adjustments necessary to zoom (and focus, back in the
day) with my more dexterous hand. I don't need my "good hand"
to push the shutter -- heck, you could do that with your nose.
If you made me use my right hand for holding the camera while
zooming (and focusing) and tracking an object, it would severely
hurt my photographic abilities.

Cameras almost exclusively ARE right-handed just as cars are in the
vast majority of countries of the world. It is a rare camera that
doesn't have the shutter button under the right finger or a car
with the accelerator pedal, brake pedal, and shift lever meant for
the right side. But for cars, ALL of them were initially designed
to be driven on the left but in the United States and most
countries except Great Britain, Japan, and a few holdovers, it
quickly became apparent that it was both easier and safer to do it
the right-handed way.

It amuses me that our new president, who claims to be so smart,
ever allowed himself to fall for not only being out-of-touch with
mainstream thinking about handedness and also to look particularly
silly when signing his name.

--
HP, aka Jerry

"The government that governs least, governs best" - Thomas
Jefferson
"Government is NOT the solution to our problems, it IS our
problem!" - Ronald Reagan
.