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

hmmm I did the test and according to the test Im left handed, except I'm not 3/5 for left.

If I play tennis seriously I'll play with my right hand, but if I play against family I'll play left handed, makes it more interesting

When I kick a footy (Aussie footy) I'm right dominated, so kick-to-kick I'm right. However if I'm kicking for goal I'll use the correct foot depending on what side of the goal I am. If you're to the left of goal you use your right and visa-versa.

when it comes to surfing or grinding I'm googly foot - that is right dominated but use my left foot forward.

When it comes to eating, I was taught to use my left hand for the fork and right for the knife. It is considered incorrect and rude to eat any other way.

Sheila, what does it mean when you write neither hooked or straight? I write with the pen in line with the line pointing to the left.

The hooked/straight thing threw me for a second. I am by no means right-brained. I have the most purely mathematical, non-creative brain of anyone I know. Yet I am left handed and don't write hooked. My dad is both logical and creative and can write either hooked or straight because of the way he was taught. I think I write straight rather than hooked because I hold my pen incorrectly to begin with, and also in elementary school, I hated being the kid who got pencil and ink all over the side of her hand! So I hold my pen between my middle finger and ring finger with my hand below the line I am writing. However, if i were to hold the pen between the two correct fingers (the first finger and middle finger), my hand does naturally hook. This might be the reason for my absurdly poor handwriting skills, and even though I had many, many special handwriting classes in elementary school, they never were able to "correct" me.

- Laura

I'm going to start posting before I forget all the points.
Wendy & Yvonne, I would say with confidence that 80% of U.S. citizens "cut and switch". That's what we were taught as children. I've always heard that is American and Europeans turn the fork upside down and use the left hand. We use the fork right side up in our right hands after cutting. Maybe it was meant to slow down our eating habits.
I'd never heard this
It does make sense, though. We've been a frontier a long time.
I think we had a lengthy discussion on knife and fork eating habits before. Interestingly to me, my son-in-law eats "European" style and he's American.
Right, back to the can kicking. I haven't seen the ep in a long time, but very often actors use the appendage closest to the camera so the action shows clearly. This goes for both arms and legs. Remember they are making 3D action 2 dimensional on your TV screen. And, IIRC, the real Lois dug for coins in the pay telephone just like the fake Lois. The writers were trying to up the dramatic quotient.
Interesting test, Sheila. I'm right handed except for clasping behind the back. Sheila said:
That's what I was lead to believe. That when I went to school in the Middle Ages, eveyone had to have their paper on their desk aligned as a right-handed person would. They were trying to eliminate left-handedness because it was believed to be "wrong." So the hook maneuver came because the lefties came in from the top of the paper. But it is interesting your daughter does it naturally.
The fake could have been writing notes in her reporters notebook left handed. That would be tough to do the hook bit with though.

Artemis

I don't really remember the ep that well, but off the top of my head, I think a more revealing and simple thing would have been a reflex action. Catching or swatting at something thrown her way, for example. No matter how hard you train yourself, I really doubt that you could get yourself to catch an unexpected ball (or other object) with your off hand.

As for myself... I'm a strong righty in the sense that I will, by instinct or preference, do most things with my right hand. OTOH, when I broke my right arm as a kid, I found myself running into a lot of difficulties. Since then, I've made sure to practice doing most common tasks with my left hand, to make myself as ambidexterous as possible. My dad has helped with that, actually. He needs a lot of elbow room at the table (a fact which he refuses to understand or aknowledge, whether it's pointed out subtly or point-blank), so I've quietly taught myself to eat lefty. Whenever he sits on my right, I simply tuck my right hand in and use my left as my primary. I'm still a little shaky with a spoon, but I can use fork, knife, or chopsticks with either hand.

On the test, I come out 50/50. I never learned to draw a profile, for some reason. I draw circles and clap hands righty, but I clasp and fold arms lefty.

As for writing, I have this talent. I can write illegibly with either hand. Thank goodness for keyboards. I do prefer to use my right hand, though, and my writing is slightly more legible when I do so.

I'm not sure about this hooked vs straight thing. I hold my pencil with three fingers. It's braced against my middle finger, but controlled by my thumb and first finger. My hand ends up basically on the line, and the pencil isn't really pointed towards or away from me. I tend to have it straight up and down, although as I move across the page, I sometimes shift my hand so it points slightly towards or away from me.

Of course, I have some personality traits which, I'm told, are associated with a strong left-right connection. So... <shrug>

Anyway, interesting discussion.

Paul

Interesting discussion.

Just a few things I wanted to point out:

The shaking hands with your right hands. I've never heard the swords explanation, but it makes sense. The explanation I've always heard turns out... after a little research ... to be more of a cultural custom. I found this site described the reason I recalled.

This may be true of other cultures too.

/me looks at the clock...

Yup, I used my whole break catching up on this and posting. *sigh* Oh well.

Sara (who's back to work where she carries trays with her left arm like an oddball )

Yeah, the swords explanation is the one I learned in my Western European style upbringing. As a coda to that, the men walked to the right of the lady so that their sword arm was then free. (BTW a left handed fencer has a great advantage because he/she comes from an unexpected direction.)
Which brings me back to...Lois and Clark! In "We Have a Lot to Talk About" Clark and Lois are walking along the street after the rainstorm. Clark automatically switches from inside to outside of Lois (i.e. near the curb) when they turn a corner. I always thought that was a great indication of Clark's gentlemanly upbringing. Why the curbside? To protect the woman from mud splattered by horse carriages on unpaved streets. We just still do it today even though most streets are paved and the gentleman would probably be as distressed about his suit getting splattered as the woman.
Ah, the trivia I know!

Artemis

I took that test and I had to laugh. I'm a righty when writing but I scored lefty on arm folding, arm grasping, and clapping. And as for drawing a circle and a profile, I do those both ways and don't favor one direction over the other. Does this mean my brain is totally confused?

The title of the book is "The Whole World of Hands." It seems to be written for youngsters, so it doesn't go into deep discussions of the neurological or sociological underpinnings of handedness.

Someone mentioned writing with the pencil facing right or left instead of away from you or toward you, and I noticed that when I write right-handed, that's the way I do it. So maybe that's more of a "hook" type of writing than "straight."

Since I was a leftie, my parents didn't really teach me to cut food up the way they and my right-handed siblings do, so I eat European style. I always eat with my left hand, so when I cut things up, I just add the knife to my right hand and then set it down. I was a young teen before I realized I was the only one in the family who wasn't switching-cutting-and-switching-back.

Actually, I'm not surprised at a righty carrying a tray in her left hand. I carry everything in my right hand so my left hand is always free for fine motor operations such as placing the plates of food on the table.

Then again, I'm probably not a good example since my family thinks I was born to be a righty. I burned the fingers of my right hand very badly when I was about 7 mos old (I still carry the scars), and I switched to the left hand. However, I've always done all gross motor actions right handed, so I play sports right handed. But when I've taken tests to reflect brain dominance, I'm very clearly ... in the middle. That's probably why I teach both math and English with equal ease. That's also why I was surprised to have the handedness tests show I'm such a strong lefty. Then again, they were almost all fine-motor tasks.

I'm glad you find this an interesting topic. I had all my family do the tests when they were over for Christmas dinner.

To bring this back to Lois and her left-handed double, I thought about the reflex action, but if something came at me from the right, I'd bat it away with the right hand (even though that's the hand I throw with), and if it came from the left, I'd use the left hand. Remember that the double was on-camera on the street, so the cameraman was in front of her (and not likely to be throwing things at her ). I thought about having her writing in her notebook, too, but from the dialog in the show, it was clear that Arie had drilled her on not using her left hand, so that would have been something she would have practiced. A reflexive response is the only one that would catch her, but I really had a hard time thinking of what she would have done on camera that would have been reflexive.

In current pics, Dean is wearing his watch on his left wrist, which to me says "right handed."

Artemis

Of course, the one point where the European way of eating falls down flat on its face is when you're faced with a plate of peas or sweetcorn. You're supposed to squish the peas/sweetcorn onto the back of the fork in your left hand - turning the fork around and using it like a spoon to shovel them up is considered poor table manners. But, if you ask me, life is too short to eat your peas in groups of three or four at a time, and who wants squished peas, anyway? So, unless I've got something to glue the peas to like mashed potato, I shovel away and stuff the table manners <g>.

Yvonne

LOL Yvonne, I never knew that about it being bad manners. I don't think I've ever met anyone who squishes their peas/corn. I'm with you, who would want to make baby food of their peas

I agree, Yvonna. Squished peas are no fun.

And, just to be contrary... <g> The watch is not *always* an accurate indicator of handedness. My sister is left-handed and wears her watch on her left hand. I, on the other hand, am a righty -- and wear my watch on my right hand.

Call us the exceptions that prove the rule, if you want.

Bethy

Hi there! I'm a newbie on this board, but I was quite intrigued by this discussion Pls forgive me for any newbie boo-boos.

Sheila, on the handedness test, I actually scored 5/5 righty. On the straight/hooked writing thingy, I had this thought:

When a righty writes straight or a lefty writes hooked, the words you're writing appear in your left field of vision, while the right visual field is blocked by your hand/pen (try writing while closing each eye in turn and you'll get what I mean). So there's more input into your left eye, and hence into your left brain. Vice versa for the lefty writing straight and the righty writing hooked.

I wonder if that's the reason why that test indicates your dominant hemisphere for language. My 2c

Welcome to our playground, JudeMustard - hope this isn't the only time you post and that you have fun hanging out with us, here.

There's a valid reason for people to wear a watch on the opposite wrist to whateverhandedness they are...and I'm danged if I can remember what the heck it is. There is one though. And it's a bloody good one. Trust me.

And..um...I'm afraid I'm now going to gross everyone out and say that my favourite food ever is mashed potatoes with peas or baked beans. So I can squish the peas/beans into the potatoes, mix them all together into a paste...and then put it in a slice of bread and make a sandwich of it. Oh, and preferably, you put in enough of the paste to make it squish out of the sides when you fold the bread over. <g>


Sorry. I know, it's appalling. But it works for me.

LabRat (now firmly in the mood and making mental note to make potatoes for dinner this evening...)

Well, I have a non-bloody-but-still-good reason to wear my watch on my dominant hand -- a bracelet my parents gave me became daily attire before a watch did; it went on the non-dominant hand. By elimination, when I started wearing a watch....

Of course, the bracelet has had to be replaced since, and I've occasionally considered setting it aside, but I'm too used to my watch on my right hand now to move it.

Oddly enough, I score lefty on three of the five tests above....

Thanks LabRat! I'm the one who emailed you last week asking if I should write that story my Muse came up with just when I was supposed to be studying.

(And the exam is this morning! Ha! Pls pray for Divine intervention if y'all would like me to have some tiny vague possibility of passing.)

With regard to the watch thing, I always just thought it was more convenient to wear it on your non-dominant hand cos it gets in the way when you're writing, and it's easier to look at it when your dominant hand is occupied doing other things - such as checking how much time you have left while frantically scribbling answers in an exam In fact, most people I knew in school who wore their watch on their dominant hand would take it off and put it on the table during any exam that involved a lot of writing.

(Thank goodness the one I'm taking today is multiple-choice. A friend at church offered to get me Divine Dice... )

Yeah...where is that story, JudeMustard? <g> Make this your first official nag.

Good luck on the exam!! Crossing all of my claws and my tail for you.

I think I've just remembered what that reason was. I think actually I'm recalling something that was once in a fanfic and is purely Lois. Something about her always wearing her watch on the opposite wrist because it fooled villains in some way when they tied her up, making it easier for her to escape.

Would be a very old fanfic. Anyone recognising this? Or have I finally taken that final step off the edge of the loopy cliff?

Exam over. Muse... gone!

Sigh. Thanks for the good wishes, I'm sure they helped. This was one of those exams where I have NO clue at the end of it whether I passed or failed. So we can all keep our fingers crossed for the next month, while we wait for the results. It was so exhausting, 200 MCQs in 6 hours... about 3/4 of the way through, I really was ready to start rolling dice!

About the muse, okay, she's MIA, but I managed to get enough out of her before she vanished for me to start writing something. Not the one I asked you about, LabRat, but another one, which I started in... are you ready for this?... 1997! (I have the IRC chat logs with KathyB to prove it. She said, "This story has potential. Don't be in a hurry to finish this." LOL. Don't think she expected me to take her that seriously!)

Okay, I'm going waaay OT here, since this has nothing to do with handedness. Unless I were to propose a poll -- seems a great many of our LnC authors are lefties... what do you guys think?

I have a feeling there was a poll on this question a while back. Yup, here it is:

Left or Right Handed?

Course, it was a while back and it's always worthwhile revisiting these questions, as more new members arrive. Might be interesting to see if the balance has changed since August.

LabRat (who recommends chaining your Muse under your desk. It stops them running off to the beach and the cabana boys...)

Personally, I've always felt that it made more sense to wear my watch on my primary hand, with the face on the back of the wrist. This was a decision I made as a kid, back when writing was something I did with a pen. The idea was that if I was going to be sitting looking at that hand anyway, it would be a lot easier just to tilt it a bit than it would be to shift my focus to my other hand. My oldest sister is one of the few people I know who agrees with me.

One of the other people I've heard of who wears his watch on his primary hand may be the cause of Lab's vague recollection. He's a friend of a friend who is somewhat paranoid. His thought was that if he wore his watch on his right hand, a potential mugger would have the opportunity to notice that and thereby assume that the victim is a lefty. This would give him a slight advantage if things then came to a struggle. It doesn't make much sense to me. I don't know how many muggers are really that observent. I don't know how many would get that close to their targets without being very aware of any movement. I don't know how many of the observent ones would be observent enough to notice other things, which might give away the ruse. But hey, if it makes the guy feel better, good for him. <shrug>

Paul