Pharyngula

Posted by: Insightful Ape | September 25, 2009 9:16 AM

In Russian the word "lefty" is still an insult.

Posted by: MAJeff, OM | September 25, 2009 9:20 AM

We're fine ust as long as no one tries to justify Penguin Lust. That's just wrong.

Posted by: Curt Cameron | September 25, 2009 9:26 AM

There's something sinister about that cartoon.

Posted by: lordshipmayhem | September 25, 2009 9:28 AM

Ah, MAJeff, what have you got against Linux? :P

Posted by: Fred The Hun | September 25, 2009 9:40 AM

Ah, MAJeff, what have you got against Linux? :P

Santa Clause wears a REDHAT, he must be a communist...

Posted by: Matt "Nora" Penfold | September 25, 2009 9:52 AM

In Russian the word "lefty" is still an insult.

It hangs around in English as well. Sinister comes from the Latin for left.

Posted by: Planeten Paultje | September 25, 2009 10:06 AM

When I went to school and was determined to be left-handed, this had to be corrected. Nobody was allowed to remain left-handed because right-handedness was the norm and therefore good and therefore the norm. This was about half a century ago. Nowadays I don't think this sillyness is still practiced. At least I hope not.

Posted by: deadjerusalem | September 25, 2009 10:19 AM

I figured after the first four panels that he was going to be a lefty.

This is probably just a coincidence, but i'm an officer of my school's Freethought group and 4 of the 6 of us are left handed.

Posted by: wheatdogg.myopenid.com | September 25, 2009 10:26 AM

The bias against left handedness is not just a medieval phenomenon. My mom (born 1914) was naturally left handed, but in the NYC schools they forced her to write with her right hand. As a result, her handwriting was pretty bad.

Linguistically speaking:
Right side = dexter. Left side = sinister. Get the picture?

Posted by: Richard Smith | September 25, 2009 10:31 AM

MAJeff, OM (#3)

We're fine ust as long as no one tries to justify Penguin Lust. That's just wrong.

Reminds me of a review of that Penguin Lust propaganda piece, March of the Penguins.

The only point losses were due to violence and animal copulation. [...] There is absolutely nothing lewd about it and no animal privates are seen, but it is still a sexual act that can create thinking in your adolescents.

The last thing you want adolescents to be doing is thinking!

Posted by: Callinectes | September 25, 2009 10:39 AM

Only a few weeks ago did I have someone complaining about the "rampant" anti-left-handedness prevalent in our society as a way to counter the "Think B4 You Speak" campaign, mentioning his left-handed son who gets through life in a society that uses words like "sinister" and "dexterous" without taking offence, and that this was somehow the same thing. He was adamant about continuing to be a Christian homophobe without anyone standing up for themselves.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | September 25, 2009 10:46 AM

Richard Smith, I just knew that review was by CAP; they're too fucking hilarious for words; I almost feel bad that they have funding problems and aren't reviewing as many movies as they used to anymore.

also: another lefty (although with strong ambidextrous tendencies)

Posted by: EvilSooty | September 25, 2009 10:52 AM

#20 - I live near Stormont as well. What have those imbeciles actually done since devolution? bar arguing over trivialities, wasting millions of pounds and rubber-stamping identical legislation that has already been introduced in England and Wales of course.

Unfortunately I doubt that things will change as the vast majority of people here just vote on tribalistic grounds. Political debates on issues not concerned with flags, Gaelic, marching bands or nationality is beyond them.

PZ: is Minnesota a nice place to live? It has got to be better than here!

Posted by: Standard Curve | September 25, 2009 11:03 AM

I thought Rectus was right Sinister was left in one linguistic family, and Dexter and Leveous (sp?) were right and left in another.

Granted I am trying to make assumptions about linguistics from Chemistry knowledge. We have D and L amino acids, but we have R and S rotation of polarized light (or just spatial orientation based on ranking of functional groups).

Posted by: Richard Smith | September 25, 2009 11:23 AM

ice9 (#22)

...if I can be so gauche...

Handled quite adroitly.

Posted by: JBlilie | September 25, 2009 11:27 AM

@17

"Right side = dexter. Left side = sinister. Get the picture?"

Bingo.

In French: droite = right (handed) = right (as in civil rights) (good!) and as in adroit (good!)

Dexter --> dextrous (good!)

left-handed = sinister (bad!)

Both my kids are left-handed. The only place I try to influence them to be a righty (we parents are righties) is when they pick up a musical instrument (such as guitar or violin). Since they are learning a completely new skill anyway, why not make it easier on yourself and just go with the flow. (You're going to be clumsy at first anyway.) Interesting that it bascially can't come up on instruments such as the piano ...

Due to repetitive stress damage, I switched to "mousing" with my left hand. It only took about 2 weeks to be just as good on the left side. Now, doing it with my right hand (which I try to avoid, sometimes I have to on shared computers) it feels weird.

Posted by: JBlilie | September 25, 2009 11:33 AM

@14:

You are in good company:

http://www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk/fam_history.html#leaders

Note that homosexual euphemisms follow the same pattern (straight / queer, etc.) The gay community has owned all words now, and proudly it seems. "Gay" itself is a brilliant meme that deflates the whole thing.

Posted by: AJ Milne OM | September 25, 2009 11:35 AM

Anybody think of any left-hand reference/word that has a positive connotation? I bet there aren't any.

Well, I tend to think of 'left wing' as something of a compliment...

Granted, some of those times, I'm pretty sure it wasn't exactly meant that way.

(/Also amusing: a recently-minted Baptist minister I bumped into at a friend's place who called me 'an enlightenment thinker', and apparently meant it in a derogatory fashion... This was more than a decade ago. And it still makes me laugh.)

Posted by: octopod | September 25, 2009 11:39 AM

Standard curve @#27: actually, it always annoyed the hell out of me! Because "dexter" and "sinister" are Latin opposites, and "Links" and "Rechts" are the German ones, but for some reason, "dextro-" and "levo-" are the modern chemistry prefixes. Go figure.

Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives | September 25, 2009 11:44 AM

If they had just killed off all the left-handers instead of retraining them to use their right hands, we wouldn't have such a scourge of them now.

Posted by: JBlilie | September 25, 2009 12:04 PM

EvilSooty @25

"PZ: is Minnesota a nice place to live? It has got to be better than here!"

Yes it is: If you can take the cold winters. The winter darkness won't bother you, coming from Ireland ...

Check out the climate. It doesn't bother me; but I prefer a marine climate.

I recently heard a local discussion on health care (I'm sure you've heard of our healthcare reform discussions over here) and a prof stated that if you looked at Minnesota as a nation-state, we would rank near the top in the world for health, education, quality of life, etc.

The outdoors are very nice here (don't mind the mosquitos, horse flies, deer flies, gnats (aka black flies or sand flies), noseeums (aka midges), stable flies (the most difficult ones to swat.)) But it's very flat. No seaside; but we do have many nice rivers and the "inland sea": Lake Superior (beautiful if very cold).

The Minneapolis-St.Paul metropolis (the "Twin Cities") are an island of tolerance and liberalism in a sea of ... whatever.

Posted by: JBlilie | September 25, 2009 12:07 PM

Duh, I forgot to mention that Minnesota is the "Land of Ten Thousand Lakes" too! We do have (>10,000) beautiful lakes.

Posted by: Paul Burnett | September 25, 2009 12:47 PM

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this story yet:

UK store launches underpants for left-handed men

A British store is launching a range of underpants for left-handed men, an innovation it says will save them both time and embarrassment in front of the porcelain. - continues at http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20090923/tsc-life-us-britain-underpants-011ccfa.html

Posted by: Aratina Cage | September 25, 2009 12:55 PM

Anybody think of any left-hand reference/word that has a positive connotation? I bet there aren't any.

Posted by: Faid | September 25, 2009 1:12 PM

I'm a leftie too- They mamaged to beat it out of my father, but they couldn't bend me.

Our numbers are constantly increasing, according to the latest estimations: 15% from 12% in the last few years. Soon, my brethren. Soon.

In other news , I think I know why PZ was browsing MCS...

http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2009/09/24/squid-tattoo/

Posted by: ursulamajor | September 25, 2009 1:48 PM

My late hubby was a left handed musician. The guitars in his house growing up were right handed so he learned to play them upside down. When he went to the conservatory, his professors shook their heads and told him he was on his own.

Posted by: Ygnir | September 25, 2009 1:51 PM

Also:

The very first computer system I worked on, a Hell Siemens workstation in 1990, had a peculiar work set-up.
Your right hand would be holding a digitizer (a very precise mouse ) and your left hand would be working a specialized keyboard with islands of function keys and dials. The OS was command line based so you didn't use the digitizer for it.
Left handed users had an advantage there, as they generally worked the function keyboard a lot faster.

Posted by: DominEditrix | September 25, 2009 2:18 PM

I was part of early childhood studies at the Gesell Institute. The mavens there told my parents that I was so strongly left-handed that to attempt to change this would be extremely damaging. Hence, they told my schools that I was to remain left-handed. My penmanship teacher in second grade used to stand over me and say that the left hand was the Devil's hand, that left-handed people would burn in Hell.

Nascent atheist that I was, I didn't believe in Hell [or the Devil]. I got my revenge two ways: I practiced my penmanship [dare I say it?] religiously, until I had the best handwriting in the class, and I told my father, the Reverend Dr DE, who stormed into the principal's office and did some verbal flaying.

My ex-husband and I are both left-handed; we took some joy in setting up our household for our convenience. Ever watched a rightie try to use a left-handed corkscrew?

Posted by: Aquaria | September 25, 2009 2:50 PM

Ambi here, and thank goodness for that, after I broke my thumb a few years ago (no fun).

I could still do crosswords, and take notes.

Posted by: mythusmage | September 25, 2009 3:41 PM

Light is the left hand of darkness.

Posted by: ice9 | September 25, 2009 4:04 PM

No such thing as ambidextrous. It means "two right hands" or "either right hand", for dog's sake--I thought we'd covered all the latin (and the greek, hence levo). Ambidextrous people are just cowards who haven't come out of the left-handed closet yet. Shame drives them, and so they continue to rub out faces in it, proclaiming their alleged bihanduality in public for all to see. The days of being impressed by this bogus claim are over. I call BS. No such thing. Next thing it will be "ambicurious" and then a movement of people with no impulse to use either hand, just schlump around all day, both arms flopping, useless. I'm not buying in to that new-agey crap.

Like all true conservative Scotsmen, I yearn for the good old days when teachers and coaches taught something, and that something was normal-handedness. Those were the days when education stood for something, and we didn't stand around and allow kids to 'opt-out' just because they were fat or had a heart condition, when we had the courage to put all the black kids in the trades where they belonged, when the teachers knew that if the football team jammed a freshman's head in the toilet, that kid bore watching. In those days our society wasn't intimidated by ALCU lefty Jew lawyers who are all "ooo-hoo, just go ahead and use any hand you want," let's sue and ruin some honest, right-thinking teacher's life just because they insisted, with rope, that you use your proper hand to write. Sure, let them go anyhanded--what do you get? A few years later and they're marryin' up with other strawfoots and breeding a bunch of filthy leftists, hanging doors on the left side and opening their Chateau Merd-Gauche with a left-handed corkscrew and wearing wristwatches ostentatiously on their right hands (turned inward on the wrist, of course.) Then of course they go out recruitin', hanging out by the schoolyard, saying "Hey there, got a lot of ink on your hand, come on over here and chat with me," and loitering at Little League and southpawing through the hockey gear during intermission.

Then off they go to one of those pinko lefthanded countries like England, everybody on the wrong side of the road like God didn't clearly tell us in Leftiticus that we are to "drive our oxen firmly on the right," (LFT 3:1) and "keep a firm right hand on your kith and kin," (LFT 33:9) and "firmly grasp thy rod with thy strong right hand and strike! strike! strike! until satisfaction is thine!" (LFT 1:1:11111:!)

That's where we're going, I tell you. It started the moment we begin to put up with this ambidextrous nonsense. They're no better than lefties, maybe worse, always looking for that different desk, always wanting special rights. Guy down at my grocery demanding a left-handed deli slicer. No way, I say! I don't mind a few slices of finger in my Cotto, even left finger, if that's what it takes to stand up for naturalness and purity.

ice9

Posted by: JackC | September 25, 2009 4:20 PM

I was going to ask about upside-down left-handed guitar playing, I knew a person in High School (in fact, I believe he was my second cousin) that played that way. Really odd to watch.

I know of no particular word for "left handed" that is positive (I think even South Paw has a negative connotation, though not a strong one), but I did want to relate this.

At a talk one time, the subject of double negatives came up. The speaker said that you could reverse the sense of a positive word with a negative word, and you could reverse the sense of a negative word with a negative word, but there was no case where you could reverse the sense by using two positive words.

Someone in the back shouted out "Yeah. Right."

:-)

(If you tilt your head just right, I am still on topic....)

JC

Posted by: Aratina Cage | September 25, 2009 4:35 PM

I'm ambicurious. Practice makes perfect! :)

Posted by: Oolon Colluphid | September 25, 2009 4:48 PM

@MAJeff, #3: damn, does no one else remember Bloom County? I need to go and sit in the dandelion patch, now.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage | September 25, 2009 5:03 PM

JackC #66

While I was in the Navy, I always said: "Well - you have your Port side [hold out the left hand], and you have your Muscatel side [hold out right hand]"
It never caught on though.... They still call it "starbord" for some odd reason....

This is no shit!* When I was in USS Gato ever so many years ago, we had an interesting mishap. The Engineer and the Electrical Officer were at the forward end of the Engine Room. The Engineer wanted to run electrical drills, so he told the Electrical Officer to trip [shut down] the starboard turbine generator [TG]. The Electrical Officer gave a cheery "aye aye," faced aft, and marched off to where he was standing between the TGs. With his right hand he hit the TG trip.

The Engineer stuck his head out of Maneuvering (that's what Engineering Control is called in submarines) and yelled: "Idiot, I told you the starboard TG." The Electrical Officer thinks about this for a second, realizes he's facing aft so starboard is on his left and port is on his right, so he's tripped the wrong TG, and then hits the other TG trip. The sub got very dark and very quiet very quickly.

*What's the difference between a fairy tale and a sea story? A fairy tale begins "Once upon a time" and a sea story begins "This is no shit!"

Posted by: Stogoe | September 25, 2009 5:19 PM

Right side = dexter

Dexter? That's not a good sign, either.

Posted by: JoeB | September 25, 2009 5:31 PM

I am a lefty, following this with much interest. Was "maladroit" covered among all the pejoratives above?
There was a researcher a decade or more ago who studied left-handedness as a possible genetic "defect" leading to lower life expectancy; there seem to be few LH'ers in nursing homes.
My sister, b. 1928, was forced to convert, but I, b. 1939, was not. It is truly amazing that the Ursuline Nuns at St. Patrick's Elem. were so progressive in one respect.
The following bulletin IS on topic, right?...
My left-handed attorney daughter presented an oral argument before the AZ supreme court, yesterday; wife and I (and her hubby) watched the live podcast! Can be seen at www.supreme.state.az.us, court vids, archived, Sept 24, Lake v. City of Phoenix. The LHD has the second 20 min., representing CoP. Now that is out of the way, LHD can get busy delivering LHGC(grandchild)#2 four months hence. To be honest, the jury is still out on extant grandson's handedness.

Posted by: JackC | September 25, 2009 6:15 PM

Several comments regarding "Left Behind" - I am now chuckling quietly to myself over an old Benny Hill visual joke...

Long story and you have probably heard or seen a million variations, but it basically is Hill asking for a video tape to be played, and staring at someone off camera, them aping what the off-cam person is doing, trying to tell him something.

He smacks his chest with his left hand and swats himself on the ass with this right, while muttering "... left tit... lef... OH!! Left it Behind!"

(I'll get me coat....)

JC

Posted by: Shadow | September 25, 2009 7:13 PM

Both grandmothers were lefties. They mentioned having their left hands tied down and / or being beaten for using them.

Used to have a T-shirt that my Stepmother (not an evil one, who is also a leftie. kept having me show my father:

The right side of the brain
controls the left side of the body

Therefore, only people who are Left Handed
are in their right mind!

Posted by: Last Hussar | September 25, 2009 9:18 PM

Not withstanding the fact that Ice9 was parodying, (it WAS a parody, right?) I feel I must point out we do drive on the right side of the road, that is the left side. I give this reason- though I can not back the veracity of what I read.

Up until the 18th century all of Europe drove on the left, in carts etc. (Apparently when driving a cart you want your dominant hand on the outside; it is you weapon hand- the middle of the cart will restrict your swing, if you have a brake on the cart it will be on the side, etc.

For most people this will be the right, so you sit on the right. thuis you drive on the left, as it is easier to judge the road, and easier passing other carts going the opposite direction, if you are sat 'in the middle' of the road.

Come the French revolution the republicans wanted to change everything, to distance themselves from the Monarchy. The idea spread as Napoleon conquered Europe. He didn't conquor Britain, so we stuck to correct method. However the Early US did every thing that France did due to the revolutionary link, and the recognition that France had beat Britain during Washington's Marxist uprising.

Posted by: R. Schauer | September 25, 2009 9:33 PM

Cuttlefish

...layin' it down!

Posted by: MAJeff, OM | September 25, 2009 9:40 PM

The Minneapolis-St.Paul metropolis (the "Twin Cities") are an island of tolerance and liberalism in a sea of ... whatever.

The thing about the Twin Cities isn't only the tolerance, but that it's a nice little cultural oasis on the edge of the prairie. Two nationally known orchestras, an amazing theater scene, a park system that almost guarantees you're never more than ten blocks from an urban green space, a culinary scene that (while not brilliant) avoids the upper midwest's allergy to flavor and spice, the birthplace of the indoor shopping mall....It's actually a very livable metropolitan area...although that last point may be a detriment, depending on your perspective--there are also lots of little neighborhood shopping areas, and a strong, strong arts scene...I mean a very strong arts scene for a metro area of that size.

Posted by: DLC | September 25, 2009 11:05 PM

All these left-handers who left religion and whom are on the political left have left me cold. It's positively sinister the way these things work out.

Posted by: MAJeff, OM | September 25, 2009 11:15 PM

Good lord, man, I can't support that.

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: SEF | September 26, 2009 5:13 AM

Public Service Post:

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Posted by: Mike John | December 17, 2009 5:46 AM

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