Category: left handed

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This is Why Lefties Are Sometimes Called “Southpaws”

Left-handed people are very interesting. Why are there so few of them? Why are they so proud of something they randomly inherited?

We may not be able to answer all of those questions today, but if you’re curious about why they’re called “southpaws,” we may have something for you.

The term has been around since the 1800s, and comes courtesy of baseball players and boxes who swung from the left. In an 1813 letter to the editor in The Tickler, perhaps the first recorded instance, it seems to be linked to boxing specifically.

An 1848 political cartoon uses it as a term for someone striking a blow with their left hand, and applies it to a Democratic contender for president, the caption reading “Curse the old hoss wot a south paw he has given me!”

In 1860, the boxing references returned, with the New York Herald reporting that lefty David Woods “planted his ‘south paw’ under his opponents chin, laying him out flat as a pancake.”

In baseball, the term began to apply to any left-handed player, but especially a pitcher, in the 1800s. In those early stadiums, home plate was built facing the west, which meant a left-handed pitcher would be throwing with his “south” paw.

Not every stadium was built this way, but since Chicago’s West Side Park was, theories are that early sports writers popularized the term, which caught on.

Another theory (for my fellow Latin nerds), is that in ancient Rome, bad omens came from the left. The word for left in Latin is sinistra, which is where we derive the English word “sinister,” and is one reason left-handed people have been thought to be devilish in the past.

It could be as simple as someone re-equating south and left and then bad and left, though I’m not sure how many Latin scholars and baseball fans intersected at the time.

There you go – now you know one more fun thing about lefties!

Go forth and share the theories with your friends (and make sure to point out the Latin one, just for fun!)

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15 Southpaws Reveal Why Being Left-Handed Is Secretly Awesome

My grandfather was a lefty and proud of it. He had all sorts of left-handed novelty gifts, and his favorite was a picture that said “if the right half of the brain controls the left half of the body, then only left-handed people are in their right minds.”

I have to think that these 15 lefties would approve.

#15. Perhaps not applicable now, but still interesting

“The spiral staircases in medieval towers always have the centre to your right when you’re climbing, so that right-handed swordsmen have less space to swing while the defenders have much more. If you’re left handed, that’s one less defence to deal with. I mean, you’re still fighting on stairs, the enemy still has the high ground and losing your balance might break your neck, but hey, at least you can stab them.”

#14. Kinda jealous

“I’m left handed but learned to use the internet my freshman year of high school in 1994-1995 and the mouse was on the right. So I learned to use a mouse right handed. My computer for a long time has been a laptop with a trackpad but if I have a mouse, I can still use my computer and write notes, eat, or whatever with my dominant hand while still using the mouse with my right hand.”

#13. Cheaters beware

“Throwing people off. There have been times where I’ve been writing and I’ve caught people staring a few times with disoriented expressions, like they know something’s off but aren’t sure what. Also, keeping people from cheating off me. My hand covers my answers as I write.

Edit: wanted to add this. When I’m drawing in Photoshop, I can hold a stylus in my left hand and a mouse in my right.”

#12. A double advantage

“When holding hands with my girlfriend, both our strong hands are free, (I’m a lefty she’s a righty)

Also some studies show among college educated people, lefties make 10-15% more money than right handed people.

Check out the handedness Wikipedia page for some interesting facts about right and left handed people.”

#11. More elbow room

 “I almost always get the seat at the end of the table when eating because nobody wants to bump elbows with me”

#10. Keep the good one clean

“don’t have to get your good hand dirty when shaking hands”

#9. Fun fact.

“We have higher-than-average representations among U.S. presidents.”

#8. Too bad it doesn’t work on planes

“I’m not in school anymore but when I was and took standardized tests and the ACT/SAT I got to sit in a corner all by myself so others wouldn’t see my paper. I had unlimited legroom and nobody beside me distracting me. Now being left-handed is just a conversation starter with no huge benefits.”

#7. Lovers and fighters

“There are two distinct advantages of being left handed. The first one is that because most people are right handed, you can usually face your lover in bed, and you both have your “good” hand free.

The other advantage comes to fighting. Most people are not expecting to get hit with a power left. By always postering my body as a right hander and having my left foot forward, most people are expecting for me to step into a right swing. But instead I fake with my right and give them my best power left. They never see it coming. It’s usually one punch and done.”

#6. Well, there’s that

“My husband calls my hand jobs “exotic” because it is a different hand”

#5. It’s like meeting another person with a third nipple

“The feeling of camaraderie with other fellow lefties.”

#4. Sports authority

“In baseball lefty’s usually can throw a curveball without even trying. When I was in high school everbody thought I had some super secret grip I used to make the ball do crazy things. In reality I was just trying to throw it straight but the ball had a mind of its own.”

#3. How handy

“Opening bottles/containers!

I always wondered why my mom and sister had such a hard time opening them and just attributed it to laziness.

Well, almost all bottle/container caps open in a counter-clockwise fashion, which goes with the natural motion of the left-hand. That means it’s easier for lefties to open things!

Of course, that means it’s harder for lefties to close them as well (in a clockwise fashion). But even then, caps open/close relatively easily after the initial opening, so the master race doesn’t even lose out much!”

#2. A disappearing advantage

“In the US, toll booths are pretty easy for lefties.”

#1. Interesting sparring

There’s a slight advantage in kickboxing (and other martial arts I guess) as we essentially learn to fight ambidextrous. Most right-handed kickboxers are at a noticeable disadvantage when they have to switch their stance, often make mistakes, etc. But that’s just what I’ve observed in lower tier boxers.

h/t: Reddit

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