Southpaws are sinister? Sheesh
Maybe it's true, I know I have a mean streak running right through the core. Anyway, apparently, lefthandedness has a fancy name: sinistrality. The etymology looks a bit suspect doesn't it? I thought so too, and guess what, it is fishy!
"... "sinister" is almost exactly the Latin word for left-handed. (Dexter meant right-handed.)" - Janis Cortese: Sinistrality, or LefthandednessYou know all this handist talk is so much bollocks when you see an article that proclaims Left-handedness common in Ice Age. Somewhere between then and now, some have hijacked an innocuous occurrence of nature and sucked it into symbolism for good or evil. I'm glad my folks were advance, and didn't force rightism on us. Some interesting reads:
- The Sinister Hand Web Feature
- Left Hand Path
- Current Left-handed research
- Leonardo, Left-Handed Draftsman and Writer
This is depressing though:
Left-handedness has been associated with many physical and mental conditions including shortened lifespan and sleep apnea (Hoffstein, 1993), Attention Deficit Disorder (Comings & Comings 1987), cognitive deficits in development of Alzheimer’s disease (Doody, et al, 1999), and homosexuality (Bailey, 1999). In addition to being more likely to die younger, left-handers have higher injury rates in sports, at home and work, and while driving (U.S. News & World Report, 1993). There is a definite decline of left-handedness with increased age (Stellman, et al, 1997). Aside from being associated with shorter lifespan, this decline may be due, in part, to social pressure to change handedness in order to conform to the right-handed norm, a situation not as strictly enforced in the West today (Klar, 1996). - Preliminary Data Indicating a Relationship Between Primary Nocturnal Enuresis and Handedness
But hey... maybe us 10% of humanity do have the last laugh:
Left handed people are more skilled with their right hand than right handed people are with their left hand... We think that this is because left handed people have to adapt more often in the society... We can conclude that at least in this respect, left handedness is a privilege. - Left-Handedness: Privilege or Disease?
As a general conclusion, it can be stated that a high proportion of left-handers among sportsmen and sportswomen may be due to the fact that left-handers have an intrinsic neurological advantage over right-handers and not to the nature of the game. Is Left-Handedness a Neurological Advantage in Sportive Activities?
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