A bit sinister

 First published in Column 8 on the 29^th May, 1991

 My left-handed relative and I (she in her pre-war gumboots, of course), were recently out in the sun sawing up wood.

While we stopped for a cuppa her eye caught a report by a Canadian professor regarding left-handed people in an old newspaper.

Reading it, my relative thought his statements smacked of Leftism, a form of prejudice at least as old as racism, and possibly older.

“Just look at the words he uses,” she said. “Sinister, and macabre and gauche. Even the headline refers to ‘lethal.’”

I suggested some smart-aleck sub-editor may have added the headline.

That really set her off. It was bad enough for a professor to draw his conclusions from insufficient evidence – he’d only used a sample of 1896 students – but for some upstart newspaper man to give his bias free reign was beyond the pale.  

Had I forgotten that left-handed people had been forced to go against their inner nature for years, hypocritically pretending to be right-handed?

The professor’s survey indicated that left-handed people were in grave danger of shortened lives.

My 74-year-old relative scoffed. “He didn’t include my 95-year-old grandfather in the survey, did he? Or your 75-year-old mother-in-law? Pablo Picasso was no chicken when he died – what’s he using him as an example for?”

The professor had also come to some conclusions regarding the driving ability of left-handers.

“What nonsense is this about left-handed people being worse drivers?” she asked. “The only accident I’ve ever had was when a drunken pedestrian bumped into my car.”

I pointed out that the professor had unwisely taken his findings from students, a group in the age range with the worst road accident record. This seemed to provide his figures with something of an inbuilt bias.

My relative checked the report again. “It’s plain the man’s no statistician,” she said. “One minute he says we widdershins are 85% more likely to have a road accident, and further down he says the figure is 135%. Can’t he make up his mind?”

“And,” she added, “what’s this nonsense about being likely to swerve to the left in a crisis and hit other cars?”

“He’s plainly myopic when it comes to countries that drive on the left-hand side of the road. If a driver in New Zealand raises his right hand on the steering wheel, and lowers his left, he’ll sail off onto the footpath, and mow down the pedestrians.”

Her final comments – before we went back to sawing the wood – were about the peculiar results of other surveys mentioned in the last paragraph, where it stated that while 13% of 20-year-olds were left-handed, only 1% of 80-year-olds were.

“Probably the left-handers were just showing off their ambidexterity on the days those surveys were taken,” she said.

“Left-handed people are so much more adaptable. By the time they’ve reached 80 they’ve truly learnt to be ambisinistrous. You have to be, in a world with right-handed scissors and knives and cheque books.”

“Show me some right-handers who’ve achieved ambidexterity,” she added, “and I’ll show you left-handers galore who’ve adapted themselves to a right-handed world.”

My relative picked up the chainsaw. “Come on slacker, we haven’t got all winter.”

Junior Campbell playing left-handed guitar
courtesy Justthefactspal

Left-handedness was a hot topic for me when this was written. I had a mother who was left-handed, as well as a mother-in-law, and two children. I’m left-handed myself when it comes to playing any game that involves a bat, or a club – anything that you swing in order to hit a ball.