
The geography of American left-handedness - srikar
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/09/22/the-surprising-geography-of-american-left-handedness/
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aluhut
My parents are right handed. I'm left handed. Had a pretty hard time in
communist Poland too. It started with a kind of wrong diagnosis where the
doctor told my parents that I'm both and that they could choose which side I'd
use. So my grandparents lobbied for right. I started out left but it was hard
with a fountain pen and since I had nobody to help me out with that my parents
finally broke and told me to learn writing right.

My writing is still horrible. Sometimes even I can't read it. I became used to
getting worse grades just for that. Same goes for art class. I was the only
person in class to cut himself with paper scissors...

Thanks to the motivation of my gf and colleges, I've started learning to write
with my left hand but it's not easy. It's like starting over again. My gf
bought me scissors for lefties. What a beautiful feeling to cut paper with the
"right" hand!

~~~
Someone1234
You are the 9% (if both parents are righties, then there is a 9% chance of a
left handed baby).

What's interesting about left handedness is that even if both parents are
lefties, the kid's chance is only 26%. Which is strangely low for something
where there is some generic link.

If one parent is a lefty the chance drops to 19%, and if no parent is a lefty
then it is 9%. The average over society is 10% of the population.

I almost don't wonder if generics isn't the primary reason that people are
left handed, but generics can make you more likely to be a lefty (for whatever
reason). That would somewhat explain the statistics.

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MacAsm
my parent are right-handed too but my grandma is leftie. But it seems almost
everybody else didn't have any leftie in the family that they're he's aware
of. I find this odd, mostly because they says it's genetics so a lot of people
cary left handed genes but it's hardly "primary"/"used" (I don't know the
right word).

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earlz
I grew up in southeast Oklahoma, as well as all my family.. Teachers spewing
off about left handedness being evil is surprisingly common, though I didn't
expect it to persist to today. Anecdotal accounts: my wife was told being left
hand was evil (she was ambidextrous) and she was converted to fully right
handed in 1st grade (1990s). My step-brother's kindergarten teacher constantly
picked on him for being left handed and made him a mockery of the class before
the superintendent intervened (1970s)... I recall one other account to do with
my step-mom, but I can't remember the details of who it was.

So yea, idk what is up with Oklahoma, but they do NOT like lefties

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hackuser
> my wife was told being left hand was evil (she was ambidextrous) and she was
> converted to fully right handed in 1st grade (1990s).

The 1990s? Is that a typo?

~~~
earlz
My wife is in her 20s, so yes, she was in first grade in the 90s heh

~~~
hackuser
Sorry, I was not commenting on your wife's age (egads!)! I was surprised that
such a practice continued as recently as the 1990s.

Wow; text can be a dangerous form of communication.

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petejansson
I had years of mechanical drawing in high school, and it wasn't until my
junior year that the teacher noticed I am left-handed. He started having me
create drawings from the lower-right corner to the upper-left, while the
right-handed kids drew from upper-left to lower-right. When I switched, I
stopped having smudged drawings caused by dragging my hand across the
completed parts of the drawings.

Little things.

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jgalt212
These days, you'd think you'd see the opposite where parents might force boys
towards left-handedness.

If you're a right-hander who throws 90 MPH, the MLB scouts will take a look at
you. If you're a left-hander who throws 90 MPH, you'll get drafted.

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smaili
For those that want to go straight to the results ==>
[https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2015/09/...](https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2015/09/left-
handedness.png)

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cgriswald
Forcing a child to write with their non-dominant hand can lead to all kinds of
psychological trauma. Children can develop stutters, have a difficult time
learning, and can experience profound secondary psychological effects.

Think about how much concentration it takes to write with your non-dominant
hand. Now imagine being a child, being told you are somehow wrong _for being
who and what you are_, and being forced to concentrate on working with your
non-dominant hand while attempting to learn how to read, write, and do math.

This educator should be fired. She is clearly incompetent. Rather than
supporting someone who already faces many challenges the right-handed world
doens't face, she is actively attacking his psyche and making it more
difficult for him to get an education.

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tosseraccount
Those sneaky East Coast lefties !!!

sinister (adj.) early 15c., "prompted by malice or ill-will, intending to
mislead," from Old French senestre, sinistre "contrary, false; unfavorable; to
the left" (14c.), from Latin sinister "left, on the left side" (opposite of
dexter)

[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=sinister](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=sinister)

~~~
beachstartup
it should be noted that the french word for 'left', 'gauche', also has a
negative connotation when used in other contexts.

and 'maladroit' comes from 'droit', which means 'right' in french.

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c3534l
"The National Geographic data also show significant variation in rates of
left-handedness by U.S. state, with higher rates in the Northeast and lower
rates in the middle of the country."

The actual accompanying data only describes white people born after 1950 which
could be evidence of too many researcher degrees of freedom. Additionally, the
legend to the map is showing single percentage points of difference which
hardly speaks to a robust finding. And given the fact that the data was
collected in a non-scientific manner, that 1% between New Jersey and Missouri
may be as easily attributed to ambidextrous people fibbing to be more unique,
or perhaps for some reason National Geographic appeals to different kinds of
people than the underlying population. At least show me an r value or
something.

At any rate, the idea that since the Victorian era people have evolved to be
less left-handed than in certain areas is absurd and without any scientific
basis.

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aw3c2
That is a rather tiny difference in percentage, is it even statistically
significant in relation to the samples?

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
If you're going to be asking questions like this, it's useful to play around
with the basic formulas:

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/math/0/b/7/0b7491a8614d7808364b...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/math/0/b/7/0b7491a8614d7808364b5a3fec9e8033.png)

and in particular imagine what'll happen when you have, on average, 28000
responders per state and what kinds of differences you can expect to observe.

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jtedward
It's interesting that the findings in this article are an unintended benefit
of a study on smell. Makes you wonder if any other studies have important data
like this where data was simply discarded because it wasn't relevant to the
initial hypothesis.

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
My reading of the article is that the data was extremely relevant to the
original hypothesis, and was used to disprove it.

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phillc73
My father's left handed, I'm left handed, my sister's ambidextrous. A couple
of her kids are left handed. There is certainly a genetic component.

My son's too young yet to have a dominant hand, but I make a point of putting
things in his left hand. It's a lifestyle choice.

I grew up in Australia in the 70s and 80s, and I don't recall any prejudice
against left-handers at the time. I never even really thought about the
difficulties of using right-handed implements. It's just the way things were.

My father does tell a story, from the early 50s, where his mother had to
forcibly intervene at his primary school, where they were trying to force him
to use his left hand.

~~~
MacAsm
> but I make a point of putting things in his left hand.

Don't even do that. It can make he use his left hand because you're someway
influencing he and if he start writing with non-dominant hand because this he
may develop a lot of problems on brain.

> it's a lifestyle choice.

What?! You first said there is certainly a genetic component then it's a
lifestyle choice? it isn't.

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mratzloff
Here's something I've always found strange: every relationship I've ever had
has been with a left-handed woman. I'm right-handed. It's not something I
notice until after maybe a third date (as I usually am the one paying the bill
before then). I don't watch for it. I certainly don't ask up front. And I
don't give it any kind of weight. But it's still weird.

For whatever reason, I guess I just seem to click better with lefties.

