The Ups and Downs, the Highs and Lows, the Joys and Sorrows of Being Left-Handed

 

“Living backwards! ” Alice repeated in great astonishment. “I never heard of such a thing! ”

—Alice, Through the Looking-Glass

“It’s a crying shame that ten percent of the world’s population has to go through life backward.”

—Left-handed business entrepreneur Christopher Mills, who started a mail-order catalog for left-handers in the 1970s

 

 

Most left-handed people adjust to “living backwards” at an early age. And a fair number become remarkably ambidextrous in the process. Manual transmissions, measuring cups, power saws, corkscrews, cameras, scissors—almost everything is manufactured with right-handers in mind, and when designers think of convenience, they think of right-handed convenience. This of course leaves left-handers inhabiting a world in which almost everything is reversed from the way their bodies tell them it should be.

Tape measures run backward; playing cards, when fanned out, reveal nothing at all (the numbers are all in the opposite corners); vegetable peelers don’t peel correctly.

Pants flies open up from the wrong side; screws turn the wrong way; even irons often have their cords hanging from the wrong side so that something as simple as pressing one’s clothes can become a logistical quagmire. (p. 59)

 

HELP IS AT HAND   While neither Polaroid nor Kodak makes cameras for left-handed use, Yashica produces a 35mm single-lens reflex camera specifically designed for left-handers. And Timex—unlike its closest competitor, Bulova—produces two different models of left-handed watches. (There is also a small specialty line at left-handed timepieces, Karis Watches, available through an outlet in San Francisco). Meanwhile, both Panasonic and Fuji have introduced camcorders specifically designed to be as easy and convenient lor left-handers to use as right-handers. Products, tools, and equipment for left-handers can be difficult to find. Left-handed tools—gardening implements, kitchen utensils, household conveniences are often manufactured in Europe and imported by U.S. distributors. There are still only a handful of left-handed specialty shops across the country (mostly in the larger metropolitan areas), but a number of mail-order supply companies feature left- handed products and can ship them almost anywhere. A list of these outlets appears in Chapter 11. One of the few U.S. companies to specifically manufacture left-handed models of its products is Remington Arms Co., Inc. Besides its regular line of firearms, Remington makes several left-handed rifles and shotguns. “The bullets, ” said a company spokesman, “are of course ambidextrous.”

 

The language runs from left to right (instead of the more comfortable right to left); watches must be set on the right-hand side; even saxophones are designed with right-handed musicians in mind.

When Alice tried to imagine what life was like on the other side of the looking glass, she was imagining the life that most left-handers lead every day.

Even if you’re a left-handed pitcher for a major-league team and take home $2.5 million a season, or a left-handed tennis pro soaking up the adulation of your fans, you’re still stuck having to open a can of pork and beans with a right-handed (p. 60) can opener. It’s not much solace that the everyday obstacles for left-handers come with no malice aforethought the fact is that the average right-handed person goes through life with scarcely a thought about hand preference one way or the other. The right hand is “the one, ” the left hand is “the other one”—and the left one gets little thought or attention.

Most left-handed people could make a long list of all the products, tools, and customs that discriminate against them. At the risk of telling left-handers what they may already know from hard experience, even a cursory comparison illustrates how many things come with the built-in potential for making a left-handed existence uncomfortable, if not at times miserable:

 

Items That Discriminate Against Left-Handers	Items That Are Left-Hander-Friendly
watch stems phone booths men’s shirts ice cream scoops decorative belt buckles rulers voting machines chain saws power saws slot machines bowling balls pinball machines dust mitts playing cards aprons golf clubs scythes and sickles coffee mugs with imprinted messages butter knives drinking fountains	typewriters computer keyboards women’s blouses highway tollbooths

(p. 61)

 

 

There are a few things in life that don’t discriminate against either left- or right-handers (Frisbees come to mind), but a large number of everyday objects force most left-handers to work a little harder at life.

Pencil sharpeners, music boxes, and microfilm viewers all have the crank on the right side.

Pocketknives have to be opened with the right thumbnail.

Soup and punch-bowl ladles pour from the wrong side for left-handed use.

Even postage stamps go on the upper right-hand corner of (p. 62) the envelope (although, according to the U.S. Postal Service, a letter will probably still go through if the stamp is put on the left).

Admittedly, these things represent minor inconveniences for most left-handers. “I’ve been a left-hander for eighty-nine years, ” one woman proudly reported to Lefthander magazine, “and managed real well in a right-handed world.”

For most left-handed people, the physical, day-to-day obstacles of life seem relatively negligible. Right? Right?

 

Why do women’s blouses button from the left while men’s shirts button from the right? The answer goes back many years. Men, it was presumed, tended to dress themselves, whereas wealthy women were often dressed by maids: the left-hand row of buttons on a blouse was more convenient for right-handed servants.

 

FIVE OF THE TOP-SELLING ITEMS AT “LEFT HAND WORLD”   1. Left-handed scissors 2. Left-handed spiral notebooks 3. Left-handed measuring cups 4. Left-handed corkscrews 5. Left-handed can openers   Courtesy Karen Carlisle, owner of the left-handers’ specialty shop Left Hand World in San Francisco—“The Shop Where the Customer Is Not Always Right.”

 

Danger on the Left

 

“You should never pick up a newspaper when you’re feeling good, because every newspaper has a special department, called the Bummer Desk, which is responsible for digging up depressing front-page stories with headlines like DOORBELL USE LINKED TO LEUKEMIA and OZONE LAYER COMPLETELY GONE DIRECTLY OVER YOUR HOUSE”

—Left-Hander Dave Barry

 

 

The notion that the disadvantages faced by left-handers might be more than negligible was first broached many years ago with (p. 63) studies purporting to show that left-handed children

 

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