If anyone picks a fight with you, tell him or her you’re left-handed and they may well think again! Scientists have found that lefties often have the upper hand in combat. This may be because in the days when arguments were resolved by hand-to-hand combat, being left-handed gave people the benefit of surprise against a right-handed opponent.
Inspiration from Lefties
“Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.” –Benjamin Franklin
Animated Lefties
Bart Simpson from The Simpsons
SpongeBob from SpongeBob SquarePants
Gromit from Wallace and Gromit
The ancient Greeks were positive toward port-siders. Their word for left was “aristera,” meaning “the best.” This is where we get the word aristocrat.
Some evidence suggests that hand dominance may be determined before environmental factors come into play. While the majority of fetuses (95 percent) suck their right thumbs, 5 percent prefer to suck the left thumb.
Did you know that statistics indicate that left-handed people are less likely to get Alzheimer’s than are right-handers?
Did you know that Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel fresco depicts Adam receiving life from God through the left hand? A lefty himself, Michelangelo started painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel for Pope Julius II in 1508, when he was only thirty-three years old.
The percentage of left-handed people is pretty constant around the world, but there are some regional variations. Dorothy Bishop, a scientist well known for her work on language and handedness, reported that 17 to 22 percent of the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia were left-handed. This is the highest number she was aware of in any group.
The visual arts offer little in the way of obstacles to lefties. In fact, judging by the high percentage of left-handers in art schools, it would seem that being a lefty offers a unique advantage.
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