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Comment by radicalbyte | Hacker News Reader

They're also horrible to use if you're left-handed and writing English or any other left-to-right language.

There was this article posted here on HN about the geodemography of left handedness in the US, and all sorts of discussion about past culture of eschewing LH'ded children in schools and such...

and I was surprised that no one brought up the very real downsides of being left handed in a left-to-right writing system region of the world (which is most of it). Most comments were leaning towards backwards conservatism and straight up malice with regard to students being forced a hand in writing early in school and it seemed no one brought up the very real practical reasons for preferring to write right handed, especially with ink.

And I say this as someone who is completely ambidextrous when writing but does not do the 'hook hand' left hand to write, and thus I usually write right-handed with pens and pencils. I have a left handed friend who does write that way and it just screams RSI/Carpal Tunnel to me.

I wonder if those issues similarly affect the right handers among the 2 billon or so users of right-to-left writing systems?

Is there a significant difference in left-handedness in RTL countries? It seems strange to me that an RTL writing system would develop in a vast majority right handed environment, for the same reasons that left handed people have issues with LTR systems

No, RTL cultures still have the 10ish percent lefties. The difference is, RTL cultures developed writing styles and hand positions to work with RTL. Whereas LTR cultures treat lefties as an afterthought, so lefties only hear about actual good hand positions and writing styles as adults, after decades of learning what is basically a mirror to right-handed style.

> Most comments were leaning towards backwards conservatism and straight up malice

That's because this is why it was done. My parochial school in the 1990s did not allow me to use my left had because of the associations with evil, and one need not look further than the latin word for left to realize how entrenched this mindset was. To extrapolate that into a beneficial practice for writing styles seems like an unfounded stretch.

Making left handed people write right handed doesn't make them right handed.

As a T-ball coach, I had every player bat left-handed in the first inning and right-handed in the second inning. They alternated each inning. I was surprised how much this upset parents.

"My child is right handed!" some insisted. I wondered how they could know that about a child who had never swung a bat before. I also wondered why a parent would want their child to be so limited.

This is hysterical: you are a T-ball coach for tykes, which are just picking up their first good coordination, and you let them feel their way, and someone tells you otherwise. Wow. You are good, while you need 6 foot tall signs for helicopter parents that say "Do not drink engine cooling fluid!"

You are a saint..

As a counter example, I'm left handed and write hundreds of pages per year in a left-to-right language and don't have issues with smudging lines with my palm.

Maybe the inks I use dry fast enough (Parker Quink or Pelikan 4001) or it's the way I learned to write back in school.

I’d argue hand technique is more important than inks. I have wet pens with slower drying inks, and I write a similar amount without any smudges.

I'm right handed and used to smudge ink, don't ask me how. Only now, with my notebooks at 90 degree angle can I write properly without smudging.

You're probably doing the lefty-handed-curl. If you adopt a really weird writing position you can write without smudges. Depending on your body-type it's either easy and obvious or very uncomfortable. I'm in the latter group so I just use a pencil.

Euch. That lefty-handed-curl is a solution proposed by the right handed world. The correct way to write as a left handed person is to turn the page ninety degrees.

My left-handed father always turned the page 90 deg to the right when given something to sign, with the left side of the line up. He caught hell for that in catholic school.

> The correct way to write as a left handed person is to turn the page ninety degrees.

That is such a genius solution!

Or play it like DaVinci and write mirrored, right-to-left.

I looked up some pictures of this lefty-handed curl and I suddenly feel immense gratitude towards the people from my childhood that taught me how to use my left hand to write in a practical and comfortable manner.

You can always write in reverse like Leonardo DaVinci did.

Or if you occasionally spill coffee or any other liquid ever. I sometimes hand-write recipes. Fountain pens + sloppy kitchen meal prep are a bad combo.

You can get some very permanent water-proof inks. Platinum Carbon black is my favourite.

De Atramentis, too, has a range of permanent inks which are quite fast-drying, too.

Happy customer for years.

Platinum Carbon Black is a wonderful ink. It seems to work very well in cheap fountain pens with flow issues. It’s highly resistant to coffee spills and looks ok on mediocre paper. Only drawback is cleaning it up; it cleans up like used motor oil.

You can get fountain pen inks that chemically react with cellulose for complete water resistance (there may still be a little smudging from unreacted ink washing off the paper). Noodler's Black is a famous example. I like this kind of ink, although it's not without its drawbacks, because cotton/rayon/other plant fiber clothing is also mostly cellulose and will be stained just as permanently.

> inks that chemically react with cellulose

I had no idea. Great tip; thanks.

I'm looking for alternatives to lamination for posting outdoor flyers & signs.

I just received some (alleged) weatherproof copier paper to experiment with.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQ3UNWL

I've used only Noodler's Bulletproof Black for years (in a TWSBI Eco piston-fill) - it works great, and I realized if I was going to take the time to write extensive notes it was worth having some protection against water.

I previously used Waterman Black - it flows really smoothly, but it isn't waterproof. Also, it doesn't seem quite as dark as the Noodler's.

Perhaps a silly question, but would something like a Mahl stick help with left-handed writing? Painters and old-school draftsmen use them to keep their grubby mitts off the surface.

I suppose in today's public school you wouldn't be allowed one because it could conceivably be used as a weapon, but it would seem to be helpful.

>Mahl stick

Thank you for using its name. I first saw it on TV showing someone hand painting a design on a car (probably a Rolls Royce on Top Gear) and thought it was brilliant in its simplicity, but didnt know its name.

I just made one with a dowel and a big superball, but I've seen one that they put a skateboard wheel (with bearings) on the end so it rolls.

Left handed person here. Writing is already a chore, tying up both hands just to use a fountain pen without smearing seems to cross an effort/reward boundary.

Maybe useful if you were really committed to the tool. I've been casually interested in fountain pens for a while but the downsides seem to stack up whenever I actually look into it.

You don't have to hold the stick, generally. For painting, yes, but you wouldn't have to when writing. It would just hold your hand up a little bit.

Maybe try a dowel with a glob of clay or something on the end and see?

The biggest crime to lefties is the fold-away half-size writing desk you see in lecture halls.

The Wikipedia entry is "Maulstick": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maulstick

You need a fast dry ink and good paper. But yes with usual supplies, it can be problematic. My kid enjoys writing with fountain pain but her furnitures are given by school and they hand out a lot of printedpaper to fill..So no luck.

The problem I find is fountain pens are awesome in the dragging motion but really don't do well with a pushing motion. Writing left handed in a LTR world means you're constantly pushing the nib while a right hander drags the nib.

Ah yes. I'm right handed and I've suffered from this when trying RTL scripts (Arabic) for calligraphy. It's a challenge to keep your hand from blotting what you've written.

As a lefty, I disagree, but I don’t “overwrite”. I hold pen like a righty.

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