Left-Handers (Those Sickos) Got No Reason to Live!

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It sure was. Teachers and parents would try to force left-handed children to be right-handed.

I know someone, a Catholic priest in fact, who is so militant about his left-handedness that he staples papers together in the upper right hand corner.

Aren't bikes both-handed?

Anyways, hilarious article! Anyone who takes the hand debate seriously is out of their mind. Being left-handed has been linked to creativity and free thinking, which Catholics in the 60's must of been afraid of. I'm not saying I couldn't write with my right hand, I'm just faster and a little bit neater with my left. I hope no one took this article seriously.

Sorry if I overreacted a bit earlier. Before Sarcastic_Name pointed this out (and painfully so...), I took the article and the existing posts very literally.

Since the beginning of time (alright, of civilization...), left-handed people have been discriminated against because they only make up approximately 10% of the population. In a lot of the more superstitious cultures, lefties were thought to be of the devil because they were different. It is natural human reaction to be at least a little bit prejudice against those who are different, but a lot of the right-handed/left-handed stuff was taken to the extreme.

Though the prejudice and discrimination has been lessened as time passes, our grandparents' generation still dealt with discrimination in schools, even to the point where the teacher would tie a student's left-hand behind his/her back and force him/her to hold the pencil and write right-handed.

Any minority is bound to have prejudice thrown against them, even if their life-style does not have a negative effect on the general population.

I'm still interested in what the article said about bikes.

Was that article serious or was the writer trying to be sarcastic?

What site address was this article from???

::confused::

HOW illogical can a human get???

Oi. People like that should just be put out of their misery. Let 'em get to "heaven" even sooner... Or at least bring sterilization back into use. Sheesh.

As has been pointed out before the article is just pointing out how silly discrimination is to minorities like the gay community. No wonder people here think they're hard done by IRL if they take things like this seriously.

Well I'm left handed my family is all right handed. Mine was caused by my CP ( Cerebral Palsy )
I have no dought I would have been right handed.

I'm proud of being LEFT HANDED.

I read a few years ago that 10,000 years ago there were next to no left handed homo-sapiens. And now it's about 11% of the population (that could have changed). Not saying this as pseudo science but it could just be Darwinian evolution in action. For the better I predict.

I'm left handed by the way

That whole first post was rediculous...

I dont think it's that. I think that people being different is more accepted these days so they are more open about being left-handed.

You're right. No pun intended by the way. Also, even a few generations ago, left-handed people were still being forced to use their right-hands for various activities. My mom is left-handed, as well, but she was forced to play sports right-handed in elementary school.

Same here (including CP).

I'm one of those peole who can use their left hand only for writing and it can't be used for anyting else. My left hand isn't very useful, except for when writing. Yes, I catch and throw with my right hand. Baseball hates me.

In times past, bias against left-handed people was conscious and acceptable. Lefties like me can breathe a sigh of relief that the cruelest practices against us have fallen into disuse and begun to seem barbaric, at least in Western culture. People are becoming increasingly aware that a bias of form still inhibits us to an extent: We encounter right-handed scissors, computer mice set up for right-handed people, musical instruments we find clumsy to use, and a left-to-right written language that can lead to ink smudges for us lefties.

Changes have been slowly happening on this front; but another, more entrenched problem remains unsolved: that of language. As the remnants of the older, more conscious anti-left-handed mood, our language keeps its warts.

Imagine this scenario, if you will. A man suffers a heart attack and is taken to the emergency room of a nearby hospital. An concerned party may ask, "How is he doing?" Some possible responses show the gravity of the situation I describe:

Response A: "He's all right now. The doctor said he should stay off his feet for a while and follow a strict diet. They're going to monitor his health closely."

Response B: "I'm sorry I have to break this to you: The essence of his life has left him. He wanted me to give you this if you didn't make it in time."

In Response A, right is associated with something positive, a condition of well-being. In Response B, in contrast, left is associated with something negative, the absence of something essential. More bias can be found examining the etymologies of words of non-English origin.

• Sinister: Sinister is the Latin word for left. Unfortunately, it has come to be associated with malevolence in modern English.
  
• Ambidextrous: Ambidextrous derives from Latin and Greek words and means having both hands function as right hands would. Not only does this etymology devalue the innate qualities of the left hand, it is at odds with facts: Ambidexters frequently have a slight preference for their left hand, not the right one.
  
• Gauche: Gauche is the French word for left, but in English it has taken the meaning of awkward and clumsy.
  
• Adroit: Adroit comes from French, too, meaning on the right. In English it means clever and skillful.

Right also some nondirectional meanings: an adjective meaning correct and a noun meaning a legal freedom. The latter usage occurs too in French, with droits being rights. E.g., "La declaration des droits de l'Homme et du citoyen" (The declaration of the rights of man and citizen).

I propose we abandon these insensitive usages and leave them for our history books. They all have synonyms that do not implicitly devalue left-handedness, except ambidextry, which will require a neologism like both-handedness.

Should we also do away with the use of saying things like telling a white lie etc because it implies white superiority? I wouldnt mind things being cahnged for my grankids but im too old to start learning a change of the english language.