Cack Handed Blog for Left Handed People who are Right Brained

This is a blog for the left handed population of the world, in other words, the one in ten of us that are in our right minds. To be more precise, the percentage of left handers fall between 0.9 and 0.7% depending on where in the world you live (ref: QI). But that still amounts to just under one billion of us on the planet.

I am fortunate not to have experienced teachers’ insistence to use the right hand at school. Instead, teachers used to constantly straighten my book on the table so that it would lay straight like those of my right handed neighbors. The result of this is that I would have to skew the left side of my body in order to write in a straight line.

Left Handed Problems

I have weals on the thumb of my left hand when I use scissors, bump elbows with neighbors at the dinner table and my bread slicing results in a wedge rather than a nice neat slab. Little did I realize I was a left handed person surviving in a right handed world until I really looked at things. I have known no different, so it didn’t seem an issue.

There are many names for us left handed: sinistral, cack-handed, southpaw, left hook, corrie-fisted, spuddy-handed, caggy-handed, buck-fisted, keck-fisted, dolly-pawed, squiffy and golly-handed, and that’s for starters. We are the minority and yet have all these bizarre attributions.

Natural Talent and Handedness

I got really interested in handedness after conducting a survey into drawing ability and handedness during teacher training, and had difficulty in finding enough left handed subjects to draw accurate conclusions. However, I did find a connection between lateral dominance of the brain (left sided or right sided) and hand-to-eye coordination, essential for good drawing.

There must be (and have been) a multitude of studies to unravel the mysteries of handedness and ability, from sports, mathematics and writing, to spatial awareness and music. And then there is temperament, health, family traits, prominent figures in history and handedness in nature. Why is left-handedness rarely found in animals, yet the polar bear is left-handed?

So I have decided to share my knowledge and experiences about all things to do with being left handed on this blog.