Sinister, Dextrous Science

Sinister, Dextrous Science

Something else from the Anchoress: I'll bet you didn't know that five of the last seven Presidents have been left-handed, which is quite a statistical anomaly considering that only something like 10% of all people are. The rest of the LiveScience article that the Anchoress links to struck me as the usual twaddle, so I went off in search of articles that, if no better grounded in research, were at least more entertaining.

Wikipedia reinforces the common knowledge that most languages include a strong bias against left-handers, such as the association of the left with evil ("sinister") and of the right with skill or virtue ("dextrous"). Among Incas, however, southpaws were thought to have special magic and healing powers. Other useful Wiki bits include the fact that, although European knives are usually ground symmetrically, Japanese knives (especially sushi knives) are biased toward right-handed use, and left-handed versions are rare and expensive.

Jimi Hendrix famously flipped his guitar upsidedown in order to play it left-handed. While French horns are made to be played with the left hand, a piano must be specially constructed backwards for that purpose. That makes my head hurt, but here's a video of the impressive results:


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