Righty Or Lefty?

Are you Right Handed or Left Handed?

  • Write Righty

    Votes: 66 72.5%

  • Write Lefty

    Votes: 24 26.4%

  • Hold Tools Predominantly Righty

    Votes: 62 68.1%

  • Hold Tools Predominantly Lefty

    Votes: 15 16.5%
  • Total voters
    91
T

The Dude

Member
Joined
Jun 8, 2007
Messages
462
At the store I observe people signing checks, cc vouchers, and various types of documents everyday.  Through these observations I have become quite curious about this issue.  I am posing this question to our Festool Woodworking Community to perhaps broaden my scope of observation.

Timmy
 
colinw said:
Timmy,
          How about an ambidextrous category  ;D

Colin. 
Click to expand...

There was a day when I needed both hands to sign a check...well...I suppose it wasn't during the day...more like 2 am.  ;) ... But not anymore!

T
 
I voted right, but I can also do most things with my left hand -and, for some things, I can do them better.
 
Timmy,
          I need two hands to bring the wheel barrow full of cash too pay for all of these Festool's..... :) ;) ;D

          and too Frank keep it clean please..... :) ;) :D ;D

Colin.
 
I too want a "it depends" answer. I started lefty, but much to the relief of my teachers (I used to write pages backwards if I picked up the pen with my left hand, and I couldn't tell that they were backwards) broke my left arm early on, so I write and throw with my right. But I draw with my left, and recently have found myself doing some writing with my left, especially things like annotating marks if I happen to be holding the tape in my right hand.

 
Dan Lyke said:
I too want a "it depends" answer. I started lefty, but much to the relief of my teachers (I used to write pages backwards if I picked up the pen with my left hand, and I couldn't tell that they were backwards) broke my left arm early on, so I write and throw with my right. But I draw with my left, and recently have found myself doing some writing with my left, especially things like annotating marks if I happen to be holding the tape in my right hand.
Click to expand...

That is really interesting Dan.

Except for writing backwards, I'm like you, except that I never broke my arm so I still write left as well as draw.
For some unknown reason (since I didn't break my left arm) I throw and hammer right, though I can hammer fairly well left.
 
Timmy
        Sorry dude it was originally ment as a joke  but i guess from the response justified    ???

Colin 
 
colinw said:
Timmy
        Sorry dude it was originally ment as a joke  but i guess from the response justified    ???

Colin 
Click to expand...

Colin, no sweat brother!  If we are anything around here, we are very laid back around here.

Looks like there are a few of the ambidextrous type around here; as for me, I am NOT left handed at all!!!  Chisel work etc. I do O.K.  But when it comes to fine motor skill with the left hand...forget about it!

t
 
I'm always amazed at how many mathematicians are left handed. Cause and effect? How are you ambidextrous people at calculus?
 
There is a disparity between the percentage of left-handers and tool usage in the left hand and I'll bet much of that is due to the tool being a 'right-handed' tool.
 
poto said:
I'm always amazed at how many mathematicians are left handed. Cause and effect? How are you ambidextrous people at calculus?
Click to expand...

I have been questioning that very thing Poto?  I subscribe to the hemispheral learning point of view.  Right Brain vs. Left Brain.  With a right handed person, the left brain is more analytical and the right brain more creative; vice versa with a lefty.  What is it about the left handed person and woodworking....is it the math and spatiality?

A couple of years ago it dawned on me that there seemed to be an inconsistency to national averages regarding right / lefty when clients would sign checks and what not.  I started an unscientific poll and found may of the contractors, carpenters, and woodworkers that did it for a living were left handed.  At least their numbers were above the national average of 11%-15%.

I have to admit that this poll grew out of the Kapex "in-line" handle.  The peeps that are used to the "horizontal" handle are questioning why the Kapex was "in-line";  Response: righty vs. lefty.

PS.  Do we find hemispheral brain behavior, as it were, in aquatic mammals?

Timmy
 
Interesting points, Timmy. In fact most animals have handedness, including marine mammals. Our dog is very right-dominant, but I've seen dogs that are leftys. Are they better at math? I don't know. Even birds tend to show a preference of left or right. Snails tend to coil their shells a certain way in a species, but there are always individuals that go the other direction.

I like your hemispherical theory. Perhaps we gravitate to fields that best exploit our talents, and leftys with their better quantitative skills (unproven?) end up disproportionately in those fields.

I betcha somebody's done a study on this. You wouldn't believe the journals that are out there!
 
hate to say it guys BUT

a good carpenter (and no doubt, any tradesman) should have the ability to work at least "slightly" ambidexturally

i do

although after my accident it IS more limited

dd

ps

we might not be able to spell very well, but just remember, that isnt what we are paid to do
 
My wife overheard me talking today about this to a client in the store.  Momma is a Speech Path. so she cruises home, and googles up this:

Not sure what here resource is:

In most (97%) right-handed people language is controlled by the left hemisphere. Left-handers have a more even distribution of language in both hemispheres. In 19% this is concentrated in the left hemisphere, and in 68% it is concentrated in the right hemisphere, the remainder have language processing in both hemispheres.

So if I'm Left-Handed, Does This Mean My Right Brain is Dominant?
No, hand dominance is not directly related to brain dominance. And, remember, just like you don't do everything with only the one hand, so your brain doesn't do everything with one side, although there is generally a preference. However, a significant number of artists have been and are left-handed, more than would be suggested by the one-in-ten occurence of left-handedness in the population. While those who are left handed do exhibit a greater propencity for right-brain dominance, being right handed does not preclude your right brain from dominanting.

But I would be derelict if I did not dial the story into the realm of engineers. Like engineering, woodworking is a left brain activity with a little right brain thrown in for creativity. What's more, Norm studied mechanical engineering and is keenly aware engineers are a big group among his viewers. Just before I interviewed him, he was having a discussion with a tool supplier about how finicky and precise retired automotive engineers are as tool buyers.

What a great wife!  She tries to keep my obsessive compulsive nature in check.

T
 
Timmy, Poto, et al, first off Timmy what the heck are you doing out of my basement and secondly I thought I told you to stay away from that crazy mechanic Poto!!!!  :) ;)

Seriously, I would like to see an ambidextrous vote in there as well. I use almost everyone of my tools with either hand though some I prefer more left and others more right. Theoretically I was supposed to have been lefthanded but my parents forced the right issue. Poto I have always been good with numbers although having been born in the Deep South, Baton Rouge, I have lived down to our lazy image and never tried terribly hard in my math classes. Much to my chagrin now but I was young and stupid back then now, not so young.  ::)

Timmy, you have a wife? If I had known that I would have let you out of the basement more often or at least when I did not need you.  ;) ;) Fred
 
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