If you're left handed...

[Sparklfairy]

Do you do anything right handed? I've realised at 34 I always use scissors right handed, probably because left handed scissors in school were a rarity and didn't work that well anyway, so I just got used to it.

I also eat right handed, knife in my right hand. Of course most people don't know it's the 'wrong' way for me.

My right hand is otherwise useless though, I'm very dominantly left handed. I can't even easily push the button to open the microwave with my right hand!

My grandmother was of the generation where left handedness was a sign of the devil (Irish Catholic) and it was trained out of her.

How useful (or useless) is non-dominant hand?

Left handed but almost ambidextrous. Brush teeth/ hair with right hand. Can play badminton equally badly with both. Probably helps that I play a few instruments so both hands have to work. Could write with my right hand if I really needed to albeit slowly.

I eat right handed but that's about it!

Left-handed: write, paint, hold fork, hold spoon, tennis, clap, pass people on left (on foot!)

Right-handed: clean teeth, cut with knife, scissors, mouse

Ambidextrous: iron, pour, dry/brush hair, apply make-up

Yes, I am left-handed for writing but do everything else right-handed (sports, scissors, chopping etc.) I think it is called cross-dominance.

I can write reasonably neatly with my right hand too, although definitely prefer my left.

Ooh but I do brush my teeth with my left too!

The only things I do ‘right handed’ is eat, but if I’m only using eg a spoon it’s in my left, and use a mouse. I am told I was obviously left handed from babyhood (my parents found slanted left handed toddler cutlery for me in the 80s, so I suspect it was pronounced even then). I’m slightly terrified at the thought of eg pouring a kettle with my right, I’d burn myself.

Things where it’s annoying: tube stiles where you have to reach across to put the ticket in, spiral bound notebooks which I use upside down, cheque stubs and fume hoods where the emergency button is tucked in the top left (ideal for a right handed to reach up and across to…).

I throw with my right arm, in fact my right arm is actually stronger (I know this from weight training) than my left, despite doing most things including carrying bags etc with my left!

I write left handed but I can use the mouse either way which was very useful when I had a data crunching job meaning I used the mouse most of the time - I could swap when one hand started aching.

I read a list once - all I can remember from it is that I thread a needle and hold a broom right handed. I am not a 1950s housewife more's the pity.

I'm left handed but I do the majority of everything else with my right hand as it's the stronger of the two. I tend to switch between them a lot as I had an operation on my right arm so it's not as strong as before and is sore easily. I remember (now 34) when I was in preschool being taught to write "correctly" with my right hand. My mum put a stop to it when she found out. I also remember in school being taught sports exclusively as a right handed person so might explain why my right is stronger

Hello have we just been rightsplained?! A right handed person telling a left handed person they aren't actually left handed...

It has always been the accepted definition that it's the hand you write with naturally or instinctively that makes you left or right handed. If you can write equally well with both or express no strong preference either way then you are classed as ambidextrous. On top of this you can also be left (or right) dominant, doing the majority of things with your left (or right...) hand. You also then have social conditioning on top of that, adapting to situations and things that are designed for right handed people. Being adaptable does not mean you are not left handed.

I am left handed and happen to be left-side dominant too, I write and do the majority of things using my left hand but not everything - but being able or choosing to do those things with my right hand doesn't mean I'm not left handed.

Left handed but use right hand for everything bar writing! Just noticed the mouse on my laptop is on the right hand side too!

Our LH son eats RH & plays football RF
Cricket and badminton he doesn't favour either hand (great if he's on your side)
But otherwise everything else is LH, we realised quite early in so made sure he had LH tools & encouraged him
His GGF was LH but pretty much ambidextrous as he got beaten at school if he used his LF
Difference of a few generations

More left handed people can do things with their right hand than right handed people can do with their left. Right handed people probably don't understand or realise this! Eg most LH handed people use a mouse in their right hand, most rh people couldn't use it in their LH.

Left: write, use fork & spoon, throw stuff (ball, darts), brush teeth, hold end of sellotape, turn on non-handed taps, hold cheese when grating (grater in right hand), peel veg, put on moisturiser, lipsalve etc., take things when offered.

Right: mouse (also sometimes use graphics tablet with left at same time), scissors (don't remember having left handed scissors as option at school, am 48), tennis racket (mostly, also swap hands for tricky shots out left), tin openers (have to!)

Either: kettle (DP is a righty so leaves stuff set up that way round and that's how to see the water level indicator).

I heard that animals have handedness too, so I've been watching the cats to see which paw they prefer to open the cat flap with!

I'm sorry for anyone who has been mocked for being left handed. That's awful. I hope your families aren't crap about other things you have no control over.

My mum was forced to be a righty at school.

I only write with my left hand - and everyone remarks I have lovely handwriting! Everything else I do with my right hand. As a kid I would swap a rounders bat to either hand but otherwise most things are right handed. As others have said there was no such thing as left handed scissors when I was young.

My teacher at infant school tried to make me write with my right hand and my Mum went into school to complain. She thought it was very old fashioned of them - and that was in the 70s. She told the teacher 4 out of 6 of us in my family are left handed. Only one of us was truly left handed with knife and fork etc.

Neither of my children are.

I eat right-handed, that's about it.
I also only use right-handed scissors but in my left hand, have never been able to get on with left-handed scissors for some reason!

This is interesting. My mum is very left handed. She does use cutlery the right way, and knits right handed as she couldn't face re-writing patterns, but everything else is left handed. I had to set up her computer mouse LH as she couldn't move it, let at use the buttons with her right.
I am RH but do a lot LH, including using her LH mouse when sorting out her computer. I will switch to LH often if something feels easier - awkward corners when decorating, ironing, sewing etc. DD is RH, but apart from writing does most things LH - sports, has to have LH scissors etc.

Eat right handed as that how mum always laid table when I was little as I was the only left hander she said she just never thought about it, consequently my 2 left handed DC also eat right handed as that's how I've always eaten,my right hand is pretty useless otherwise.

My nursery also tried to get me to write right handed,my mother believes this is why I mirror wrote for a few years.

Ooooh this is an interesting thread.

I'm left handed for writing, sewing, and use my fork in my left hand and my knife in the right.

I chop with my left hand, pour the kettle with my right hand. Brush my teeth and hair left handed.

Use a computer mouse with my right hand and scissors in my right hand.

I can actually write reasonably well with my right hand. I had to learn when I broke my left arm as a child. I find it physically exhausting though!

Leftie here too, I eat right handed but apart from that do almost everything left handed. I don’t bother with left handed stuff like scissors, they’ve never caused me problems. I like being left handed and was slightly disappointed (unreasonably) when both my kids turned out right handed. My sister is left handed and some of my cousins on my mother’s side of the family. I like sitting at tables next to left handed people, eg for meals, as then we don’t tend to bump elbows so much. And yes cake forks are annoying.

You've just brought back a memory of me playing rounders and the kids shrieking on the opposite team about me being a leftie so the fielders needed to change position in anticipation of the ball going in a different direction. Sometimes I got away with them not noticing and felt quite smug when I got all the way around as they scrambled for the ball!

Left handed for writing, sewing and doing blood tests (I work in healthcare) - but will use my right hand for scissors, using a kitchen knife, playing badminton/tennis!

Left-handed for writing, right-handed for scissors, and then a mix of both hands for everything else. But I'd say my dominant hand and what I feel comfortable using most is the left

I wonder how much of this is because most things are set up for right handed people so we just adapt!