Typing has sure helped us out. Of course, the "QWERTY" keyboard made to slow a right-handed person down helps out the lefty, because it made a lot of words easier for us to type.

Tell me how eagerly left-handed pitchers are sought, and left-handed batters. The majority of champion fencers are left-handed, as well as the majority of professional hockey players. The French Horn is a left-handed instrument, and the trombone is "ambidextrous".

Dan from Atlanta recently told me that the French Horn isn't really a lefty instrument. The valves were put on the left side rather as an afterthought. All of the tonal changes were originally done by cupping the right hand in the bell opening. So... It isn't really left-handed, but I bet we are better at playing it than the righties are!
Thanks for the info Dan!!!

Of course, the romantic side is great; how many lefties with right-handed dates have found they can hold hands and still both eat? Talk about romantic! It is definitely cool.

Left-handers are generally more intelligent than right-handers. It is a smaller statistical universe, so that the numbers are slightly skewed, but who am I to argue with good thing?

One of my favorite things about being a lefty is my computer mouse. I have it set for left-handed use and it DEFINITELY deters other people from walking up and using my computer while I'm gone from my desk at work! Of course, having a lockable screen doesn't hurt, either...

We also tend to be better at three-dimensional concept thinking than the dexters, too.

Talk about the little-known discrimination! Yeah, women have had it, other minorities have had it, but this discrimination occurs and no one sees it, no one hears it, and every one laughs when you bring it up, because it is obviously a joke.

After all, how hard can it be to be lefthanded? Big deal, right? WRONG! Who else was whipped for being a devil's child just because of how they picked up a pencil, a hoe, a fork? Who else had it beaten out of them "for their own good"? This is recent, folks! My mother-in-law had it done to her growing up. I had a couple of teachers tsk tsk at me, and I am not that old!

Let's see, put that load of laundry in the dryer. moving to the right, aren't you? That top door of the washer that opens to the side? Which side? The left... It stays out of the way of the right-handed people, but not us.

Write with a ball-point, or pencil... Legible? Sure, if you're right-handed or an encouraged lefty. Most of us write "backwards". Gee, that purple and black hand isn't so pretty, huh. Ooh, yuck! Look at that paper!!!
Easy fix, though... If you talc (powder) you hand before writing, it shouldn't smudge you or the paper.

Even in the 1940s, a psychiatrist (Abram Blau) believed that left-handed children were the products of cold and inattentive mothers. -- "Being left-handed is a neurrotic choice made by antisocial individuals". I believe the quote came from this work:

Blau, Abram, 1907-
The master hand; a study of the origin and meaning of right and left sidedness and its relation to personality and language ... New York, 1946. Series title: American Orthopsychiatric Association. Research monographs. no. 5.

And this "best known and least-liked acedemic to publish a paper on left-handedness since Abram Brau" claims scientifically we live shorter lives and are more prone to accidents. He has been met with scorn and ridicule. Heck, ask a lefty if they feel more like a clutz that their righty counterparts. You will probably get a yes.

Coren, Stanley.
The left-hander syndrome : the causes and consequences of left-handedness / Stanley Coren. New York : Free Press ; Toronto : Maxwell Macmillan Canada ; New York : Maxwell Macmillan International, c1992.

Go here for an excerpt from the book

Yes, it's a gripe, but there is also a lot to be thankful for as a lefty.

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I received some good info from Dave Hughes about Guitars and their place in the lefty handicaps and gripes. Here is what he had to say about my thoughts on guitars as a handicap. Thanks Dave! (04/14/03)

"The 'nut', the piece at the top of the fingerboard that aligns the strings to the fingerboard, has to be replaced, as well [as the board being turned], since it is grooved with a progression of groove widths for the different sized strings.
But...
I, along with several lefties I know, and a number of well-known left-handed guitarists (such as Michael Bloomfield), play 'right-handed' guitars. This is because we feel that what is termed a 'right-handed' guitar is actually better played by a lefty, because of the fact that your 'better hand' is on the fingerboard. To me, and to many others, the hand at the fingerboard is the more critical hand in guitar playing, and thus it makes more sense for lefties to play 'right-handed' guitars, un-reversed. This is, of course, opinion and personal preference, but there are quite a few lefties out there playing guitar 'right-handed'. Hey, it worked for Mike Bloomfield, and it works for me!"

Who is (was) Michael Bloomfield? Click Here!