Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Lois & Clark Left or Right Handed?

I just watched 201 - Madam Ex. That's the one where Lois has a criminal double, and the only difference between the two is that Lois is righthanded and the double is lefthanded. But when Lois and Clark investigate the dumpster where the doctor's body was found Lois is all upset and kicks an empty can WITH HER LEFT FOOT.

I watched the scene a couple of times and I'm convinced that that was her natural way of kicking. Don't you think the editors should have been more careful about that?

By the way, I'm only very new here but I really enjoy this forum. Thanks to all posters.

Hey there, welcome!

Hmm...well, I write with my left hand, and it's my natural tendancy to kick with my right foot. But that could just be me and my weird tendancies; I get ambidextrous with things. I don't know whether or not there's a correlation between hands and feet.

Interesting.
JD

I thought of that because I know lots of people who are righthanded and leftfooted or vice versa. Still the point is that even before the matter was mentioned in the episode I noticed that Lois kicked it with her left foot because it seemed unnatural for me. So even though it's quite possible that she's like you - aren't you lucky! - if I was the director I would have been more careful with it.

It also seems possible to me that it's just another one of the loose ends that seem to abound in L&C, like the fact that the nude of Martha was never explained, or that there was a timer counting down when they broke into an office - don't remember which episode but it was towards the end of the episode - and that was never dealt with either.

Makes it that much more exciting, I suppose.

I've never kicked cans, but I have kicked pebbles down the street while walking home from school, and I used whichever foot was closest to the pebble. Consider this: if an object is directly in front of your left foot (by however many inches) it is MUCH easier to kick it with that foot than to try to kick it with the right foot. I mean you CAN, but then the object will go sideways. The only way the object will go forward is if you twist your foot/leg and that's really too much effort, if you ask me.

I'm sure the director wanted the incident to look natural. If the director had told Teri "you NEED to kick it with your right foot" then she'd have been concentrating on making sure her right foot was in the correct position and she'd be focused on her pacing and not so much on her lines and would it really have been worth it?

...eh, who knows. But good observation & welcome to the MBs.

Okay, I'll leave it at that. I'm not really into kicking pebbles so I wouldn't really know. Still seems strange to me that the difference in handedness between the double and Lois was mentioned but hardly pursued.

On handedness I have a question. In the different episodes I've notice Clark/Dean writing with his right hand but in the episode where Lois cooks breakfast he has the fork in his left hand. Is Dean right or left handed.

Not sure how to answer that, but I know that I am 100% righthanded yet I tend to eat with my left hand. I usually will hold the fork with my left hand and a knife with my right, that way I can cut with my right hand but I'm too lazy to swith the fork over to my right hand after I cut something, so I end up just eating with my left. If that makes ANY sense LOL. Maybe Dean is the same, or perhaps I'm just weird and he is just ambidextrous?

According to a book I got at Christmas, although around 90% of the population is right-handed, almost no one is entirely one or the other. Handedness is largely a matter of degree. As a result, I would say that Dean is right-handed, just not entirely so.

To test your own degree of handedness, try the following test:
1. Draw the profile of a face.
2. Draw a circle.
3. Grasp your hands behind your back.
4. Clap your hands.
5. Fold your arms across your chest.

Strong righties always draw the profile facing left. They draw the circle counterclockwise. Their right hand grasps the left hand behind their backs. When clapping the right hand beats down on the left, and when they cross their arms, the right fingers are showing.

Strong lefties do the opposite. When I tried the test, I was a lefty for all but item five, where I cross my arms like a righty.

Interesting test, Sheila! As I knew, I am 100% lefty .

I agree with everyone else about the kicking. I played soccer in high school, and although I kicked much more accurately and stronger with my left foot, if my right foot was at a better angle to the ball, I wouldn't hesitate to use it.

- Laura

I had a discussion about this with a French friend and an American friend before. And we came to the conclusion that Americans do the fork-switching-hands thing and Europeans hold the knife with the hand they write with. I do the European way but I'm not sure I'm the average Canadian. I think I've heard that the European way is the formal, proper way in business dinners. Anyway, so I think Dean is just right-handed, not ambidextrous.

Just my 2 cents,
Simba

Interesting test indeed, Sheila. I'm right handed and always considered myself to be, in not 100% right handed, then at least very strongly so. I use my left hand to do almost nothing, always prefering to use my right. However, on the test, I only scored as a righty twice (numbers 1 and 4) and all other times scored as a lefty. Fascinating.

As for switching hands while eating, I learned at one point that it became an American tradition and point of ettiquette during the early colonization/frontier days when everyone was armed and the country still had a very rogue feel about it. Putting the fork in one's dominant hand was a way of signifying that they were not a threat. People who used their left hand to eat and kept their knife in their right hand the entire time were regarded suspiciously. For the record, I have no idea where I read this though, so while it seems to make sense, I can't vouch for it's accuracy.

Annie

I've always known I'm a total lefty. Can't even carry a purse or bag over my right shoulder, it slides right off.

But on this one, like you, Sheila, I was a righty on #5.

Huh.

Now I know that can't be interesting to anyone but me, but I felt compelled to say "Me too!"

CC

Well, just because I'm different, I'm right-handed, but scored left-handed on no. 3. No idea why; that's the way I've always held my hands if I link them behind my back. Everything else I do the right-handed way. Fascinating test!

As for the fork thing, I never knew there was an issue there. If I'm not using a knife at all - eg eating a rice dish or a stir-fry - I'll hold my fork in my right hand. Otherwise I'll hold it in the 'proper' hand - the left - and use my knife in my right hand, using both items of cutlery together. I'm trying to get a mental picture, though - do people actually cut something with their knife, put it down and then take up their fork in their right hand?


Wendy

Yes, Wendy, I've actually seen this. Seemed a very long-winded and clumsy way to eat to me, but then etiquette often has little to do with good sense and convenience, doesn't it? <g> I'm intrigued to learn that it may stem from a need to show yourself as unarmed - although isn't it just as threatening to know someone's got a free hand that they could use to stab/shoot you?

Yvonne

A couple different things to say here.

1. I've never understood that obsession with the fake-Lois pushing her hair out of her face with her left hand. I've talked to lots of people and we all agree -- you push the hair with the hand that's closest! Or the hand that's free, even if it's an awkward push, when you've got lots of stuff in one hand. I think having fake-Lois be left-handed is an interesting way to 'smoke her out,' as it were, but they picked a really stupid way to reveal it.

2. A lot of right-handed people are left-footed, or vice versa. I personally am right-handed, right-footed, right-eyed and left-eared. <g> (I literally cannot use a phone with my right ear. It's as if all hearing capabilities are shut off.) Plus the argument about using whichever foot is closest -- although I'm strongly enough right-footed that when randombly kicking pebbles, etc, *I'll* move to be able to get a right-kick position, even if a left-kick would've been simpler.

3. The test. Well, I was confused at first...clasped my hands behind my back by folding them. So neither one was 'grasping' the other. <g> But when I understood, yes, I test as a righty. Except the clapping thing...both hands come in from the sides equally. :p And when I switched to the described way, I test as a lefty. Odd, since I can't *do* anything with my left hand.

4. Eating. I've adapted to the European way of holding the fork and the knife. But yes, overall, Americans tend to cut-switch-eat-switch-cut-switch-eat. I have never heard Annie's explanation before, but it does make sense -- same reason we shake hands with our right hands. Most people are right-handed, so both then had their sword hand occupied and couldn't attack.

However, I do use my right hand with the fork when eating without a knife. And, I have a personal habit from childhood that I don't do in polite company (I've been told it's rude) -- I cut *all* the food, switch hands, and use my right to eat all my nice bite-sized pieces. The reason for this is that it leaves the left hand open to hold a book! (What? You didn't read during every meal except family dinners the entire time you were growing up? <g>)

I think that's all I have to say. Well, except that the whole left-hand-to-brush-hair-means-she-can't-be-Lois thing still bothers me!

Bethy

I tried your test, Sheila, and scored right-handed for all questions.

I'm generally right-handed, but some things I do with my left hand "obligatorily". For example, I am just *unable* to even hold the fork with my left hand. So, I use the knife with the left. Same when I want to serve a glass of water: For some reason, I *must* hold the glass with my right hand, so I grab the bottle with my left hand. (Weird, isn't it?)

As for left-footed or right-footed, I can't really tell. I pretty much suck at football I *think* my right foot is slightly more efficient, though.

See ya,
AnnaBtG.

The book had one other test which I found interesting and explained something that had puzzled me all my life. Of the lefties I knew growing up, I was the only one who had been taught how to hold a pencil and paper so that I write with my hand and arm lined up straight with the paper and have a slight right-handed slant to my letters instead of a strong back-slant. I assumed it was because I had been taught to write left-handed properly, and the others hadn't.

However, I carefully taught my left-handed daughter how to hold her pencil and write, but she was never able to do it the way I showed her. Instead, her hand hooked over, and her letters had a slight back-slant.

This test explained the discrepency to me. Write your name on a piece of paper and answer these questions:

1. Did you write with your left or right hand?
2. Did the pencil point away from you when you wrote, with your hand below the line (straight writing)?
3. Did the pencil point towards you with your hand above the line of writing (hooked writing)?

"Those with hooked left-handed and straight right-handed writing seem to have the language center in the left brain. They are said to be left-brained dominated. Straight left-handers and hooked right-handers have language centers in the right hemisphere. These are the right-brain-dominated people."

So, although my daughter and I are both left-handed, she is left-brain dominant, and I am right-brain dominant.

To bring this closer to the original topic , I've watched Dean autograph things, and he writes straight right-handed, so he is left-brain dominant.

Bethy, I also understand the point you're making, but I was slightly stumped when I tried to think of something that the imposter could do quickly and unthinkingly on camera that would reveal her left-handedness instead of her carefully practiced right-handed actions. Can anyone come up with something that could have appeared on the news clip of her?

Sounds interesting.... What's the title of the book?


metwin1

ok, i guess i have to add my two cents in here too. believe it or not, i always considered dean to be left-handed. i'm not really sure why, i think it was because a lot of times in the show i noticed him wearing a watch on his right hand. (i know, crazy me). as for the test, i consider myself to be totally right-handed, and i was except that i always crossed my arms left-handedly. interesting. this was a fun topic!

In pics I have of Dean from a few years ago, I've got him writing with his right hand, drinking out of a cup with his left, and dribbling a basketball with his right. Just to add to the heap o' facts we've got going on, here.