Today is Left Handers Day, which was founded in 1992 by The Left-Handers Club (a very cool-sounding organisation indeed).
What better time to consider the history of discrimination that left-handed people, comprising a whole 10% of the population, have faced throughout the years?
Being left-handed has never been easy, even if you were literally a King. George VI, for instance, was forced to write with his right-hand as a child.
It’s been theorised that pre-Industrial revolution, it wasn’t really that big a deal being left-handed. But the more that lefties were forced to use mass-produced tools in the workplace – all of which were designed for the right-handed – the more they came to appear clumsy or incapable.
Similarly, the types of ink pen used in schools at the time made it extremely apparent if someone was left-handed – it was impossible for lefty kids to write without smearing ink on the page.
By and large, this wasn’t treated sympathetically, and left-handed children were forced to write with the wrong hand.
It can be possible to ‘convert’ a child into being right-handed, or ambidextrous, with regular practice – but doing this has also been proven, in some cases, to be harmful to their well-being and development.
So where does all this bias comes from? Well, the idea that that there’s something strange about left-handedness is embedded in many languages.
In English, the word ‘left’ is derived from the anglo-saxon for ‘weak’. We use the expression ‘to have two left feet’ to mean that someone is clumsy – when really, someone having two right feet would be just as bad.
In French meanwhile, ‘gauche’ (left) suggests awkwardness, clumsiness, or a lack of grace. It’s also telling that in many European languages, including English, ‘right’ means moral or correct.
The word ‘sinister’ which, all things considered, is not a great way to be described, is derived from the Latin for ‘left’. In fact, ‘sinistral’ is still used today as a more formal term for ‘left-handed’ – despite the fact it sounds pretty creepy.
One of the most extreme examples of this linguistic bias can be found in Turkish, where the word for right also means ‘alive’, while the word for left means ‘die.’
Given that the the idea of ‘left’ has been thought of in such a negative way, it’s no surprise that left-handed people have had such a hard time.
However, most of the bias that left-handed people experience isn’t because they are thought of as clumsy or evil.
It’s simply because the vast majority of products are designed with right-handed people in mind.
Scissors, knives, cameras, and all manner of sports and music equipment are far more awkward to use if you’re left-handed, unless you buy specialist stuff that’s often more expensive and harder to access.
But the good news is that there has been far greater acceptance of left-handedness in the last century, with forced right-hand writing becoming increasingly rare.
There are also a wide range of positive role models, not least The Simpson’s loveable evangelist Ned Flanders, with his heart-warming plea for tolerance: ‘Lord Loves A Lefty’.
If you’re looking for a way to celebrate the day, the UK’s largest guitar store Guitarguitar are offering free guitar classes for left-handed people this weekend (Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 August.)
If you can already play and don’t need a lesson, you can turn up for a free restringing instead.
Guitarguitar have stores in Edinburgh, Birmingham, Camden, Epsom, Newcastle and Glasgow.
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