The areas with higher rates of left handedness on the map seem to correlate to the more progressive areas where you’d expect parents and teachers to not discourage it. Was kind of surprised they didn’t mention that, given they started with that anecdote.
Supermancho · 39m ago
I do recall preferring the left hand on my first day with a pencil. However, during that first day, I remember being able to switch to use my right hand as well and it started to feel more comfortable after a very short time. The tipping point was the frustration of using my right hand and failing to be able to control it correctly. I swapped to my (then-worse) left hand and was willing to deal with the frustration better. By the second day, my right hand was too alien and I only switched back briefly in my early 30s due to injuring my left arm/hand, where I basically had pre-school level right-hand cursive.
As far as I know, I'm the only left hander in my extended family.
bradley13 · 34m ago
My parents "retrained" me to be right-handed. All primary-school things like writing, using scissors, etc. I do right-handed. For the rest? All I am is confused - some things I do right-handed, others left-handed. FWIW I was a very awkward and uncoordinated kid, which...may be related?
xrayarx · 1h ago
Quote from the article
One of the best available data sets on left-handedness comes from a scratch-and-sniff survey of olfactory ability mailed out to millions of National Geographic subscribers in the 1980s.
Go ahead and read that sentence again — it doesn't get any less weird the second time around.
nine_k · 1h ago
The geographical weirdness: left-handedness is much more widespread in Northeast, with some less prominent peaks in Florida, Arizona, South Dakota. The source is suggested to be genetic.
I wonder if there's information on how many passengers of the Mayflower were left-handed.
jamesmontalvo3 · 1h ago
> I wonder if there's information on how many passengers of the Mayflower were left-handed.
Probably 0% reported, considering the negative views towards left-handedness at the time.
irrational · 1h ago
My son is left handed. Nobody else in my or my wife’s family is or has been left handed, that we know of. And we don’t live in one of the mentioned areas. It seems odd, but I’ve never looked into it.
reactordev · 1h ago
I’m the same. No one in my family tree going back to my great grandparents were lefties. Nor any cousins or 2nd cousins. Just me.
deathanatos · 2h ago
The archive.org link doesn't seem to have captured TFA.
As far as I know, I'm the only left hander in my extended family.
One of the best available data sets on left-handedness comes from a scratch-and-sniff survey of olfactory ability mailed out to millions of National Geographic subscribers in the 1980s.
Go ahead and read that sentence again — it doesn't get any less weird the second time around.
I wonder if there's information on how many passengers of the Mayflower were left-handed.
Probably 0% reported, considering the negative views towards left-handedness at the time.
https://archive.ph/y543P