Talk:Left-handedness

List Merge

FANTASTIC Why was the list of left-handed people merged into this article? The list on this article is incomplete and it has a few people that shouldn't be here. 85.211.44.53 (talk) 01:16, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

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Genetics

I came to this page mainly to learn whether it was normal for two right-handed people to have a left-handed child. It would be nice to have some information on the genetic link. Thank you :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.211.44.53 (talk) 01:14, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

left handed intelligence, dyslexia

Unfortunately, they tend to be over-represented at both ends of the intellectual scale, and as well as geniuses, the group also produces a disproportionately high number of those with learning handicaps. There have been suggestions of links between left-handedness and dyslexia, stuttering, and child autism, among other disabilities.[citation needed]

I think someone should mention that a major cause of lefthanded handicap people is because the left side of their brain is damaged making thier right side make up for it

Shared material with handedness

Moved to Talk:Laterality#Merger proposal. Please go there to continue merger discussion.

I'm left handed: Parents,Teachers, and all Society trys to make lefthanded people to use the right hand so how do we really know what the right persentages are of how many lefthanded people there are suppose to be. All items are set-up for righthandedness coffee mugs,sissors,power tools,doors opening,cords. But some are now being changed to the middle of the item. When corrections are made there are no accidents no more curling iron burning the arm etc.. I have no tickets, or accidents my driving is fine. I do my job like everyone else maybe better then some. I do interior Design and have a great nack for it I took classes for it in college and was at the top of my class. I'm the only one in my family that is lefthanded I have seen small children pick-up a pencil in the lefthand and the teacher/parent moves it to the righthand so then learn to use the other. There were no sissors that would cut lefthanded when I was in school so I learned how to use my righthand to use sissors you adapt to your surroundings. I have one cousin that is lefthanded. no one on my Moms side and out of 8 brothers and Sisters one of their children is that cousin that is lefthanded so it doesn't run in families none of my 4 children use their lefthand mt daughter started picking up things once in a while with her lefthand and everyone around her stopped her from doing it. She is now right handed a great at art doing it righthanded and I'm great doing lefthanded.

Ultrasound and lefthandedness

I'm no expert on the subject, but when I read the section about Ultrasound I recalled hearing about the study that is only briefly mentioned in this article. Thus, I did some research:

"Kieler's team studied a group of Swedish men born between 1973 and 1978. Nearly 7000 had received ultrasonic scans in the womb, while 170,000 had not. Kieler found that of the men born between 1976 and 1978 who had ultrasonic scans in the womb, 32 per cent more than expected were left-handed. In an average population, around nine per cent of men are left-handed."

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1670 is where I found the information above.

But, I'm new to wikipedia and I don't feel all too confident with making an edit, especially since I'm not sure how to avoid plagiarising and how to document the edit... if someone could tell me how to go about with this I'd be very grateful.

- VanillaCreem

Southpaw as a boxing term

Southpaw can be Kept as a Boxing term, since they don't use left-handed fighter in boxing.

Evolutionary theories

Being better fighters isn't a theory about why most of the population is right-handed. It has no correlation to the number of left-handed people, because most people, regardless of laterality, don't fight too much.

ultrasound

Virtually everyone is using ultra sound now..and still the ratio(at least in my area) is about 1 left-handed to ten right handed.Although COMPLETELY inconclusive and unrelaible, there seems to be a connection between creativity and left handed, and factual with right handed.

Birds

I read somewhere that birds actually have 'handedness' and need to overcome it in order to fly.

What happened? Things missing....

There was a great paragraph on how in the Midevil Ages swordsmen had an advantage over other fighters if they could wield a sword in their left hand and some other great info. What happened to it?

"Cack-handed"

"Cack-handed," rather than being "merely slang," is indeed likely to also be an insulting term. The word "cack" refers to excrement, and I believe is synonymous with our other, more common four-letter word for excrement. (I learned this while living in England, so it must be largely an English term.)

In Hebrew and other cultures in the Middle East in which detailed protocols concerning handwashing and hand-use were practiced as part of religion, the right hand was considered superior, and was acceptable for eating and other pleasant personal needs, important religious practices, certain ways of touching people, and for other desirable and "positive" activities. The left hand, however, was reserved for wiping oneself after bathroom functions, and for other "unsavory" activities.

As well as India. Cack-handed is a vulgar term. I have removed it from the page. By the way, Hebrew is a language, not a culture. Perhaps you were looking for the Israeli culture or the country of Israel (the Middle East isn't a culture, either, it's a physical region. One could argue that the Middle East is a macroculture, but this is an oversimplification of many peoples. Ice Ardor (talk) 08:42, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

The term is mentioned later in the article, with possible etymology, and a cite. However, it doesn't need to be where you've removed it. --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 08:55, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Beethoven

He was not left-handed. In fact in his most famous portrait, appears composing with his right hand. Do you have any evidence of that?

Robert Fripp playing left-handed?

I'm a lefty who switched to playing right-handed guitar after a few years playing the other way. It's definitely more natural for your dominant hand to be the rhythm/autopilot hand, I switched just as I got annoyed with the lack of guitars available for lefties years back.

Clear Citation for Percentage of Population Being Left-Handed

I'm starting this new talk section for the statistic about percentage of the population being left-handed. For the longest time I had heard it was only 2% of the world population. That has increased over time in my experience to the 7-10% cited in this article to the 15% cited here in this Scientific American article from 6 years ago. Until we get a clear definition on that, perhaps that part should be removed. Alex (talk) 01:35, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Do your research, take a neutral point of view

There is a lot of speculation about causes for left-handedness, correlations with intelligence/gender/salary, and many research sources have conflicting information. Avoid making single-sided statements without fully researching the topic. Avoid using news websites and blogs for citations, which often try to draw a conclusion that may not be scientifically significant. Cite your sources directly from published studies, not a journalist's report on the study. Lastly, realize that discussing left-handedness as a disability or disadvantage outside of a section specifically on disadvantages of lefthandedness should be avoided in order to maintain a neutral point of view. "Left-handers" is slang and derogatory.

This article is not about left-handed people. It's about the noun left-handedness. Just like molecules can be left- or right-handed, a device can be left- or right-handed. A device can be designed for left-handed use, not for left-handed people. Ice Ardor (talk) 08:33, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Can you be more specific about your concerns? Adding a POV tag to the top of the article and complaining about the cites in general does not help anyone understand what the issue is and what could be done to address it. Where exactly do your concerns about neutrality lie?

This article has always been about left handedness in people. You are correct that other things can be 'left-handed', but that's a completely different matter, and I do not see any advantage to placing them in this article, particularly when this one is so mature. Other 'left-handedness' is adequately covered in the "See also" section. Thanks. --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 20:29, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Minority ≠ Abnormality

In the article on right-handedness there is no section entitled "Causes of right-handedness". The implication that left-handedness is an abnormal condition is as offensive as implying the same of dark skin or maleness. Just because most of us are born female does not mean that males are accidents or mutations. Males are a feature of the human species, and so are left-handed people. It is offensive to speak of "causes". We can talk about how the two types come to be differentiated. It may seem like a subtle difference of wording, but this approach preserves the legitimacy of both forms regardless of which is more common. Please, let us not fall prey to that age-old glitch in human thinking; minority does not equal abnormality. --24.20.9.33 (talk) 04:51, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Being a left-handed black male, I actually think all of those topics sound interesting! I don't disagree with your argument, however, so how would you title such a discussion? I can't think of the one perfect title that isn't literally synonymous to "Causes of left-handedness" and that would include all aspects of the same discussion. I would need to separate topics into "Why almost everyone favors using one hand or the other", "How biology can determine one's handedness", "How society can impose handedness", and "Theories and factors contributing to the low occurance of left-handedness" to cover the same information. Jtp6duke (talk) 01:48, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Picture

The picture for "Girl playing guitar left-handed" is awful.--98.82.117.232 (talk) 04:08, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Lists of names

Lists of names in this article should be sourced in accordance with WP:BLP. As there is no way of constantly maintaining linked articles, this applies to names which have a Wikipedia article as well as those that do not. Any name listed with no verifiable citations should be removed. Refer to WP:NLIST for guidance. Fæ (talk) 05:04, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

We have repeatedly been down this route before. See previous discussions in the archives of this page (recent one here) . A list of "notable" left handers is essentially POV (Who's notable? Are they notable for being left handed, or just notable?), irrelevant (What does it demonstrate? Some famous people are left-handed? So what?) and is a unmaintainable cruft magnet that gradually swamps the article. Entries are also usually uncited and frequently incorrect (Einstein was not left handed, for a start). So I have removed the list. --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 12:27, 30 October 2010 (UTC)