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.

As would be the norm

For me “cack handed” is used to mean clumsy or to mess things up.

back handed compliment- insult
left handed- write with left

It is. Saying something is a bit left handed to mean something wrong is a very old fashioned insult.

This. I read very, very widely in English literature from the 18thc onward, and have no memory of ever coming across it, though I would have intuited the same meaning as 'backhanded compliment' if I had.

These days, I think people are very aware of the traditional othering of left-handed people by language like dextrous/sinister etc, so it's unlikely to be used.

Backhanded comes from the idea that you use your right hand for eating and your left hand fir dirty jobs, like arse wiping

Never heard of a left-handed compliment, always backhanded- I wonder if it is a regional thing.

Back handed. Left handed I would take to literally mean writes etc. with the left hand.

My maternal grandfather had his left hand tied to a chair to stop him writing with it in school, in the 1940/50’s, in the UK. I can well imagine that the saying was originally “left handed compliment”.

Left handedness was dimly viewed in West until relatively recently. It still is in other parts of the world, very openly so.

I'm with the 98%

Back handed compliment is a false compliment that has you wondering if it might actually be an insult
Cack handed is to do with being clumsy
Left handed means your left hand is dominant.

Oh and don't agree it is a 'modern' thing. My parents born in the 1920s would use the words as above.

It’s back handed

It’s not a question of “do you say”

Left handed has never been used to mean this

It’s been in use for a long time but maybe in other English speaking nations?

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/left-handed-compliment#

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/left-handed-compliment

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/left-handed_compliment

https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/left-handed-compliment

This site says it’s US English but synonymous with the phrase ‘back handed compliment’: https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/left-handed-compliment

This language corpus search shows all instances of “backhanded compliment” and “lefthanded compliment” across a huge corpus of books in English (both American and British) over many decades. Looks like lefthanded compliment as a phrase is not seen much at all compared to backhanded.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/info

Indeed. In my 66 years as a left-hander, this thread is the first time I've heard it used in this way.

And I find it insulting.