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Comment by roryrjb | Hacker News Reader

"For Southpaws themselves — the affectionate term for lefties ", yeah maybe in the US but not where I'm from. Anyway, I write left handed and hold a pool cue left handed (and also I think I'm correct in saying this: I would hold a rifle left handed), but in every other way that I can think of, I am right handed. I've always thought that was weird, I mean at least compared to others. Anyone else have similar experiences?

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I write and do all other stuff requiring dexterity with my left, but I use my right to operate a mouse. I can use my left as well, but I learned to use my right hand for convenience.

Yeah use the mouse with my right as well, but I've never knowingly made a conscious decision to learn to use my right, how I use things just seems natural to me.

I can mouse equally well with either hand but how often do you find a mouse on the left side of a keyboard? Keyboards themselves are arguably left-handed devices, influencing the decision to mouse with the right further. Similarly, I 10-key right-handed. Many things I do right-handed are not preferences but just learned responses to how the world works.

I've had some thoughts about liking to see some studies on whether people who write left handed or are mostly left handed dominant still mostly use mouse with their right hand. And to take it further, are these people playing first person shooters with invert mouse more often than right handed people OR left handed people who use mouse with left hand?

It is convenient as you don't have to swap a right-hander's mouse to the other side of the keyboard to use it.

I very rarely see a right-hander who can do the same.

Strangely I find my right to be more accurate but could be down to the extra concentration applied (particularly playing sport). You can seriously mess with a batsman in cricket if you can bowl with the right and then switch to left.

Inigo: I admit it: you are better than I am!

Man in Black: Then why are you smiling?

Inigo: Because I know something you don't know.

Man in Black: And what is that?

Inigo: I am not left handed! [switches the sword to his right hand and starts driving him back]

I find being left handed and using the mouse in my right hand very useful.

I can have a pencil writing notes in my left hand, while I control the computer via mouse in my right.

Similarity, mouse the cursor with my right and type with my left.

I write, eat, hold a pool cue, golf club, and rifle left-handed but play guitar and hockey right-handed (among other things). Most of my life, my vocabulary defined either “left-handed” or “right-handed” people, where I’d consider you and I left-handed but with right-handed adaptations. (“A lefty living in a right-handed world”) But maybe “mixed handed” is a more accurate term.

Interesting... I'm pretty sure I hold a golf club right handed, but I didn't play much and it was a long time ago so I'm not sure, but I used to play with a friend who was definitely left handed, and he was different to me and everyone else in this respect. I play guitar right handed as well. I've described myself as ambidextrous before, but that's probably incorrect, but it raises the question for me, if that means "equally adapted" how much of that translates into real world activities?

Perhaps "cross-dominant" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-dominance) [which I just came across] is a better term for people like us. I don't view myself as ambidextrous because I'm definitely not equally good with both hands. Rather, handedness for me is strongly preferential based on the task.

  but play guitar and hockey right-handed

It's normal that one shoots right in hockey when one is left-handed (hence the rarity of right shooters). It's counterintuitive when going from years if baseball to hockey for the first time.

If you play field hockey the stick is right-handed similar to a golf club.

A guitar is potentially better for a left-hander if your left is more dexterous.

Field hockey (ie not ice hockey) sticks are only available in the right handed configuration for safety reasons:

https://www.livestrong.com/article/368589-why-are-all-field-...

Interesting...thanks for the link.

I did some further reading and found this rule from 1876 on not playing left handed.

Rule 7: The ball may be stopped, but not carried or knocked, by any part of the body. No player shall raise his stick above his shoulder. The ball shall be played from right to left, and no left or back-handed play, charging, tripping, collaring, (pulling the shirt) or shinning, (hitting the leg) shall be allowed.

You should hold a pool cue and a rifle based on your dominant eye, not necessarily your dominant hand.

Everything right handed (I'm good at drawing), except tin/can opening, there the right hand holds and the left one applies force.

But I'm a clear left footer, I kick better and control force better with my left foot.

left hand: hand-write, soccer (kick with left foot), tooth brush, scissors, ping-pong, billard cue

right hand: computer mouse, handball (throw with left hand), gun-shooting?, guitar, mini-golf, hockey, baseball

Except for baseball (where a pure lefty would also bat left handed), you're almost entirely left handed (i.e. do the same as pure lefties and righties do).

Unless I'm misunderstanding the guitar bit, assume you mean fret with your right hand. If it's the other way around that's pretty cool, and I would think highly unusual, to fret with the hand that you don't write with.

Actually, now I'm totally confused, I write with my left and fret a guitar with my left, which might not be normal :)

Hendrix wrote with his right, but strummed with his left and fretted with his right. He also used a right handed guitar but turned it the other way and strung it for a left handed.

I just play a right-handed guitar 'upside-down'. While this makes it harder to finger many chords as I need to reach over the lower strings to reach the higher ones it makes it easier to just pick up any guitar I come across. I learnt it this way because of the way I learnt to play guitar, by picking up one of such and starting to play it - little did I know I did it 'wrong'.

I mistakenly wrote "throw with left hand" but it's the right hand as the others on that line.

As to guitar playing: Strumming with my right, holding the guitar to the left, like regular/right-handed guitar players. (Snowboarding, also regular, left foot in front).

Oh, ok, then we're the same :)

Left handed for the fine motor tasks (write, eat, ...) and right hand dominant for the rest (throw, bat, ...)

I never played (ice) hockey, but I believe pure lefties tend to shoot right handed, and vice versa for righties (i.e. with dominant hand on the top).

That's interesting, I'd never noticed that the majority of hockey shots are with the blade to the left. One-handed things like clubs, rackets, paddles, and swords, I like them in my right hand while most right-handed writers seem to prefer the right hand. Makes sense. So being a right-handed thrower with a dominant left hand would be the last thing where we haven't a good explanation.

left:

- write

- pool cue

- brush teeth

- scissors

- spoon

- fork

right:

- throw

- punch

- tennis/ping pong

- knife

i've always seen it as left=precision, right=force for me

Yeah now thinking about it the "left=precision, right=force" statement does make a lot of sense for me.

That's pretty close to how I do things and I've tended to view the dichotomy similarly. To add to the comment, when batting I'm more comfortable right handed and when kicking I prefer my right foot. I've also grown accustomed to using scissors and mice right handed out of necessity (though one might also argue that scissors frequently involve power). What's odd to me is that I often don't know which hand I'm going to prefer for a task until I try it.

Reading this thread, it's interesting to see that this may actually reasonably common. I don't think I've met anyone else who works this way before, and I realize that this sub-thread is rather self-selecting. Still, it's an existence proof that there's more than one of us.

I also mostly follow this pattern also. As I imagine throwing with my left arm and right arm, the left arm feels a bit "numb" comparatively, like my brain doesn't have as many neurons devoted to controlling it or reading information from it. I can't describe it very well. I wouldn't imagine anything unique in that, and a left armed person could just as easily feel that imagining doing those things with their right arm. It just feels odd to pay attention to the difference in how my brain processes both sides.

I'm the same, but I'm rubbish at throwing, hitting, sports in general.

So I'm undecided whether I support your left=precision, right=force theory.

I'm similar:

left: write, throw, pool cue, scissors, tennis, kick (soccer, AFL), shoot (archery, gun)

right: cricket, baseball

squash, knife/fork - somewhat ambidextrous. In squash I serve left handed but sometimes throw my racquet to my right hand mid point when the ball swaps sides (I'm not a good player - just social).

My right arm is definitely stronger than my left but less precise. I wonder if this is an artifact of living in a right-hand centric world. There are many things that are subtly biased to right handed use.

I am also right eye dominant which means I would theoretically be better off throwing and shooting right handed (better aim) but my body naturally coordinates these actions better as left handed. I guess I want the precision of coordination over the benefit of more accurate depth perception in aiming.

Ditto.

Have you tried using a mouse (in right) and a graphics tablet (in left) at the same time? It can be very productive. Large sweeping movements with the mouse and fine detail with the left. Plus it impresses righties.

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