Do you say left handed or back handed

[LeftOrBack]

for compliments that are really insults?

YABU - back handed compliment
YANBU - left handed

Left handed sounds right to me.

Already done, I feel. Hardly anyone!

Apparently, they are both "right" but back-handed (or backhanded or back handed) is much more common.

Is It Backhanded Compliment or Left-Handed Compliment? (grammarist.com)

They’re definitely both right, perhaps it’s a regional thing.

Cack handed is what it used to be called around here.

I’ve heard of people saying back handed compliments too but never cack handed compliments!

No that's when you do something badly which is a completely different thing to back handed compliment. I've never heard left handed OP.

Thanks, don’t know how reliable that source is but fascinating to see back handed compliments surging after the 1980s

Back handed compliment here. Never heard it been referred to as a left handed compliment

I agree. This is the first time I’ve heard of it.

I thought cack handedness was more to do with being physically clumsy.

I think that it might depend on the region of the world.

I think that, in the UK, 'back-handed compliment" is the most likely one people would use.

Left-handed might be more common in the US and perhaps Australia.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-12-04-sp-1265-story.html

I am left handed and definitely not past my 'best before date.
Cack handed in my family has always meant clumsy and we still say this.

It is, but it derives from being derogatory about left handed people.

That’s something completely different. Cack handed means inept or clumsy, including verbally. Backhanded compliment means an insult disguised as a compliment.

I've never heard "left handed" in that context, only " back handed" Cack handed, to me, means awkward or clumsy.
Double edged doesn't mean any of these things.

A compliment can be back handed.

A person can be left handed.

The source of the data in the graph isn’t attributed at all!

I've never heard of a left handed compliment before. A quick Google shows it's a thing but I'm in my 50's and have only ever heard people use the phrase "back handed compliment".

You learn something new everyday.

I’ve never heard of the phrase ‘left-handed compliment’. Please don’t use ‘left handed’ as an insult.

I’ve heard of left field as an (unrelated) saying but never left handed. You learn something new everyday.

I am in my early 70s and have never heard the phrase "left handed compliment" being used. How far back in time do you mean by "traditionally"?

“Since at least the late 1800’s, the term ‘backhanded’ has been used figuratively to mean “oblique in meaning; indirect, devious, equivocal, ambiguous, or sarcastic.

The variant left-handed compliment comes from the use, dating from around 1600 of the word left-handed to mean “questionable” or “doubtful.” This use, in turn, derived from the left long being associated with wrongness or evil. The word sinister was the Latin word left or “on the left side” which became through Old French, our modern word sinister.”

https://www.idioms.online/backhanded-compliment/

I’ve personally heard both. Backhanded more commonly.

Interesting! I've never heard it used in this context.

Yup, another phrase that could do with dying out. My nan would refer to me being cack handed rather than left handed occasionally - with absolutely no malice as she was an utterly wondrful person - and I didn't love it. No-one needs any suggestion that they are 'wrong handed'.

We are, of course, far from the top of the persecuted list but have historically been seen as unlucky, unclean, forced to use our right hands, don't have left handed kit provided in schools etc and those language hangovers from less aware and enlightened times aren't helpful.

OP - it has always been 'back handed' regardless if you have used a regional version!!!!