a couple years ago some friends on a community driven wargame community and I were engaging in a worldbuilding discussion, creating factions and armies and such for our world
I Said “Im going to have a leftist insurgency” and everyone groaned. "why do you have to make it political cant we just have silly scifi tropes
“Who said anything about politics, 95% of your units are holding their weapons in their right hand. this is a left handed faction”
them
It was Lego, by the way…
I love that their assumption was that their highly fractured society going to war with one another wasn’t political. What do people think politics is?
The original fracture in this society was a disagreement about whether socks and sandals is a fashion faux pas. Then someone brought up pineapple on pizza…
Yeah… Like honestly, someone’s gonna get beat for the wrong opinion. Get some!
When need was young, you weren’t allowed to BE left handed, even if you were. They forced you to do things right handedly, so Ned learned to do the things he does with his right hand, but in his soul he is left handed, as he’s always had to work really hard at learning things with his right. He wanted to change the world for the better.
My dad is like that. He writes with his right hand because he was beaten at school by the nuns if he tried to do anything with his left hand, but he essentially does everything else with his left. It was quite a traumatic experience for him.
His parents never would’ve done that. Wouldn’t. Couldn’t.
While you are most definitely correct his parents wouldn’t do that; schools back then absolutely did enforce that and he clearly did still go through school.
I’m 70 years old, so maybe things have changed, but my left handed brother was FORCED to use his right hand for everything, as we were growing up. Apparently left handedness is a sign of the devil, or some such crap. As a result, he was effectively ambidextrous, as an adult.
Which country did you grow up in out of curiosity? They definitely did this in soviet union because it was more optimal to not have to design anything for minority of left handed people.
I grew up in Australia, but my parents are Ukrainian, so this makes sense.
Need Flanders is definitely old enough to have possibly been forced to work with his right hand, meaning that while his left is his dominant he was forced to use his right enough to be effectively ambidextrous.
Some left handed guitarists play right handed just because left handed guitars are much harder to find, or they just string it like Jimi Hendrix lol. I’m sure that’s true of other tools and hobbies.
Yep. My brother is left handed and he plays right handed because it’s just easier to get a right handed guitar
a friend of mine learned how to play upside down as well so he could play any guitar. not to the degree he played lefties but it was still impressive
I am cross dominant. I do somethings right handed, some things left handed, and there’s a few things I can do with either. This blew the mind of every elementary school teacher I had until 4th grade because by then I had the vocabulary to explain myself.
For many years I only felt comfortable using right handed scissors in my left hand because my kindergarten teacher refused to give me a left handed pair since I write with my right hand. I argued with every adult that tried to teach me how to play baseball because I naturally line up lefty at the plate but I throw better right handed. Turns out I can bat switch but fuck them, they didn’t know that.
I remember being out to dinner with my family and my brother was joking with me about how I would have to struggle to cut up my food being left handed because how the seats were arranged. I just switched to my right and him and a couple other people were like… What?.. I didn’t even know that people used a specific hand for their utensils.
We never had left handed stuff when I was in school so I guess I just learned on my own.
Oddly, using a fork is something that only feels comfortable with my left hand. I can eat right handed but it feels off somehow.
I’m like that with putting my contacts in. For whatever reason I can do it right handed without any problem but when I use my left hand it’s a shitshow.
I wonder how much of handedness is really “real”. I’m sure there’s a bit of a preference there, but a lot of it might be also training.
For example, I started using my phone in my “off-hand” years ago to keep my “main-hand” free for other stuff. Turns out I do more on my phone than on my free hand, and now I’m much better with my “off-hand” with my phone than with my “main-hand”.
n=1 of course, but my dad was forced to write right-handed in school (early 60’s and an old-school teacher for those days). The result was more punishment as no matter how he tried, he simply couldn’t (and still cannot) write very readable with his right hand. So no, I don’t think practice is enough to make somebody ambidextrous. Might work for some, but certainly not for everybody.
It certainly felt real to me growing up. No matter how much teachers would insist that I use scissors right handed, I just couldn’t. That being said, with enough training and descipline you can certainly overcome that. As an adult, I can use scissors in either hand but not particularly well.
I always felt like a lot of sites and apps were made to be used left handed anyway. It seems like the controls are often on the left side. Maybe it’s just that I primarily used reddit and now lemmy though.
I’m righty for everything except specifically throwing a Frisbee. I just can’t do it with my right hand, unless it’s an overhand chuck. Makes disc golf a bitch because no matter how I throw, it usually breaks right from the spin.
On some courses that’s a big advantage. I always threw left and my dad always threw right, it was interesting how the geometry of the course could tilt our fortunes.
My school did this to me in the 2000s :(
Why :( ?
We have a skill that most don’t have. Give someone who’s single hand dominant only, a steak. Watch as they constantly have to shuffle the silverware back and forth. Or go play like baseball or racquetball or tennis or badminton, etc. and just keep swapping the hand, it’ll throw them off.
Why :( ?
No idea. They did this thinking they were doing a good thing for me, for some reason. It was just ignorance and lack of information from them, I think.
Well, at one hand, I became ambidextrous, and got no bad side effects that I’m aware of, but on the other hand, this didn’t improve anything in my life. Pun partially intended :D
shuffle the silverware
This is a telltale sign of an American. In other regions everyone uses both hands. https://youtu.be/fypq2qhRZnI
Oh! I had no idea that was very much an Americanism! Next time I travel overseas I’m definitely going to pay more attention to that.
Literally people who don’t know how to properly use silwerware.
I cannot do pretty much any precise stuff with my left hand. I can however eat perfectly fine without switching the fork to my right hand (unless there is nothing left to cut I sometimes switch).
This shows abuse more than anything. He was likely forced to use his right hand growing up and has never fully recovered.
Spanked it right out of him…
Yeah, that episode was basically making the point that he’s from a generation where being different was considered wrong, and abusive behavior corrections were an option.
The boomers went through some stuff. Ned included.
I watched some movie set in the boomer era where a kid’s dad died suddenly, and at the open-casket funeral, he saw his dad’s dead body and screamed and ran, and all the adults just scolded him and yelled at him. On the day of his own father’s funeral.
I asked my dad “is that how it was like for everyone back then?” and he said “yup”.
I am gen-X / xenial and I had a friend who, while in elementary school, was forcibly made right handed. One day when we were in our late 30s saw me doing something with my left hand and said that make so much sense and realized he was actually left-handed.
THAT GUY IS SPANKING WITH HIS LEFT HAND!
It’s clear that right conversion therapy doesn’t really work.
I haven’t LOL’d in a while. Thank you.
yeah my dad was a leftie forced to be a righty.
I had a teacher in high school who was ambidextrous because of nun-based leftie abuse.
Maybe the camera is flipping the image like a mirror in the most inconvenient of times.
wizard do things
Tbf, if they didn’t show him writing with his right hand, this would all be acceptable.
I write with my left hand, but play guitar right handed, pitch a baseball right handed, do basically everything right handed, except usung my left to write and do knife work in the kitchen.
Left handed folks are often ambidextrous.
Not to mention he’s religious and back a number of years, you weren’t allowed to be left handed, so maybe that is why he writes with his right hand in the scene, and maybe why it’s such a liberation for him to come out as left handed? Idk
Left handed folks are often ambidextrous.
Pick a side already!
You right-handers force us into this position!
There’s only one thing you use everyday that’s made for the left hand and it’s flushing the toilet!
Think of how that feels!
In europe almost all toilets have flush button in the middle of the tank
In the Europe I have been living my entire life in, positions of flush buttons are completely random and different on almost every toilet.
Both my toilets have the flushing thing on the right side.
NOW THEY TOOK THE TOILETS FROM US
Most things cater to right-handedness, there isn’t much of a choice 🤷♂️
One oddity for me at least: I’m left handed, but right eye dominant; which means I aim a gun or draw a bow with my right hand, to line up with my right eye.
ay i’m right handed but left eye dominant so i shoot left handed. hello chiral twin!
I’m cross-dominant and left eye dominant but when I draw bows I use my right hand, pistols I use my right hand, but rifles I use left handed
I can’t explain why beyond that it’s just comfortable to do this way
Yeah, I used scissors as a main tool in my manufacturing job that I had nearly a decade, …many tools are right handed. Even driving a stick shift is right handed work.
You adapt.
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Left handed folks are often ambidextrous.Not to mention he’s religious and back a number of years, you weren’t allowed to be left handed, so maybe that is why he writes with his right hand in the scene
I had a teacher in high school who wrote poorly with both hands, he explained, because he went to a catholic school where they slapped his left hand with a ruler when wrote with it.
Yep, same situation for me. “Ambidextrous” roughly means “two right hands,” so I like to joke that I’m ambisinistral - I’ve got two left hands.
Technically you are mixed-handed as you use one hand mainly for particular actions, just different hands. Ambidexterity is being able to do anything equally well with either hand.
To be more exact, you are “criss-cross-applesauced” but it’s a technical term.
i prefer the term “ambisinister”
That’s actually the technical term for being equally kack-handed with both hands. Right-handed propaganda, I know.
You sound like you’re right handed and just happen to write with your left. Lol
But really, your “definition” wouldn’t be ambidextrous. That’s for people who can do most tasks pretty much equally with either hand.
You would be known as “cross dominant”. That’s where you’re better with one hand or the other, depending on what task it is.
I’m a fairly standard lefty myself, Im able to do most things pretty well with my right hand, but mostly always best with my left.
I’m right handed for writing but I prefer left for a lot of stuff. I ride primarily left forward on skateboard and snowboard. Throughout my childhood years everyone fucking hated my lefty hockey stick especially since the three lefties played right handed. Some games they forced me to either play right hand or sit out too.
Left foot forward IS the ‘righthanded’ way. Left foot forward is called regular stance, right foot forward is called goofy stance
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-find-your-skateboarding-stance-goofy-foot-vs-regular
oh I guess the people hassling me about it were the backwards ones
TIL I’m skating and snowboarding goofy, though I don’t do those much
I’m riding bike left foot front, which is apparently considered goofy in BMX world
He was only ever sold right-handed pens his whole life.
He’s finally out of the closet and open about who he is!
Whenever you notice something like that, a wizard did it.
You’re welcome
And where exactly was he supposed to find a left-handed bowling ball? Huh? D’jever think of that?
Not sure if your serious but I’m a left handed bowler. You normally buy the bowling balls without holes, then have a shop measure your hand and how you throw and drill the holes to based on you.
Boy, I really hope someone got fired for that blunder.
Or paddled.
i know plenty of lefty guitarists who play right handed guitars. they’re cheaper, for one.
What exactly stops you from just re-arranging the strings so they go the other way? Or is the whole body of the guitar somehow different? I never understood why they have to be made left or right handed.
the bridge is arranged a certain way (some of them have ridges in slightly different spots for the endpoint of each string) so restringing it would be… unpleasant. more involved than just the strings. some of them, the body of the guitar is shaped to hug your body. I can think of a few different guitars in the family collection and why it wouldn’t work, but like, it’s usually more complicated than just the strings
As a lefy this is more or less spot on. Pick guards are also on the wrong side usually
You mean there on the right side.
i forgot about the pegs for the strap too.
Pick guards are for guitars that weren’t varnished properly.
–An Ovation player.
In a lot of cases the body of the guitar is different.
Some acoustic guitars like this one:
might work fine strung backwards; you might have to do a bit of alteration to the bridge and the nut, and you might put on a second pick guard, but you can probably Lefty that Righty.
A guitar with a bite taken out of the body like this:
That bite is so that it’s easier to reach the base of the fretboard where the high pitch meedly meedly notes live. If you flip that guitar over, the notch is on the wrong side. You can still play it, but the point of that notch has been eliminated.
Acoustic-electric guitars, such as most Ovations, have their controls or built-in tuners on the sidewall that would face “up” when held and played, making that a pain to use upside down. Possibly literally if sitting down because the knobs would dig into your thigh.
Electric guitars like the Fender Stratocaster:
Are 1. surprisingly heavy because the body is solid wood, it’s not hollow like an acoustic, and 2. are carved to fit a human body. You can see in that image the relief for your side in the back and for your elbow on the front. The tremolo lever (“whammy bar”) is in an asymmetric location so that it can be both used and moved out of the way. The knobs and switch are convenient yet out of the way of strumming. The cord socket is designed to point the cord down and away. If you use this guitar upside down, you defeat all those ergonomics, the guitar would become difficult and uncomfortable to hold and use. Didn’t stop Jimi Hendrix, who famously played a Stratocaster upside down.
I’m left handed and a guitarist, and I assert that a standard guitar IS left handed. The intricate work of fingering on the frets is done with the left hand, the large gross movements of strumming is done with the right. I’m perfectly comfortable using a standard guitar, yet most of the right handed people who have asked me to teach them to play have wanted to hold the guitar the other way, neck in right hand.
I’m left handed and a guitarist, and I assert that a standard guitar IS left handed.
i play electric bass (badly) and am a leftie and agree
This is so interesting. I play bass right handed, standard. The lefty bass felt so weird. What an interesting thought. The left hand is the one doing the most work.
Yes this exactly. Even playing fingerpick style with the right hand doing some intricate work, I’m really concentrating on my left hand and my right hand just abides.
I know right? My primary instrument is sax, so they both feel a little off but righty feels better than lefty. I think my hands/wrists are just in the same arrangement (right hand low, left hand wherever the fuck it’s going) for righty bass as my favorite sax.
Drums are similar. Playing “right handed” puts your left hand on the snare, generally.
Jimi Hendrix famously did this, but it’s not without its drawbacks. Some models are more problematic than others.
An acoustic like this would probably be pretty straightforward.
I play guitar right handed because I was taught by a right handed person and those were the only guitars he had. Right privilege is real.
They are not actually, at least the dozen or so I looked at on Sweetwater before buying my leftie. They right-handed selection is better, but the price was the same.
Huh, til. They were at the shop I looked at 30 years ago and the market has not changed I refuse to accept it.
Just string a right handed guitar the wrong way
Many older southpaws actually know how to write with their right hand, as teachers used to force the southpaw students to learn it
