Why Left-handed Day?
by Amongst the plethora of ‘dedicated’ days in existence, there is now a left-handed day. If you think the idea that one is required is a ridiculous, please read on; you may change your mind!
The number of days dedicated to a cause or group of people seems to be steadily growing. It appears that there’s a day for everything, from ‘Middle Name Pride Day’ to ‘International Talk Like a Pirate Day’. August 13th has been declared Left-Handed Day and you may well be wondering who on earth would think it necessary.
Maybe by end of this article you will agree they deserve a day – at least as much as those who enjoy pretending to be Captain Jack Sparrow for 24 hours!
People like to think in opposites. Male and female, light and dark, right and left; more often than not, one is seen as good and the other bad. The association of right with good and left with evil has been present since biblical times. The Bible refers positively to the right hand 100 times (e.g. “The right hand is a place of wisdom as opposed to foolishness” [Ecclesiastes 10:2]), and negatively to the left hand 25 times.
Superstitions abound regarding the left hand, and by extension to left-handers. Satan was said to baptise his followers with his left hand, and witches said to greet him with their left hand. Ghosts are supposed to only be seen when looking over the left shoulder. An itching right palm indicates the receipt of money, whereas an itching left palm indicates losing it.
The only positive superstition I’ve come across is the old adage ‘Left for love, right for spite’ which lets you know what people are saying about you depending on which of your ears are burning. I suspect that this saying came into being due to alliteration and the lack of decent rhymes for ‘left’, rather than a conscious attempt to give positive spin to the left!
The association of left with bad and right with good pervades our language, and many others besides. Negative words relating to the left are also used to describe left-handers. The word ‘right’ also means just and correct, with the inference that left should mean the opposite. The word ‘sinister’ is derived from the Latin for left, and now means evil or unlucky. The French for left is ‘gauche’ which is English for clumsy. No wonder lefties are seen as clumsy though, when the world seems at times to have been designed with right-handers in mind.
Most appliances, including PC monitors, washing machines and microwaves have the controls on the right hand side, leaving lefties constantly reaching across their bodies to press buttons. Keys turn in the most awkward directions and locks are positioned so the lefty will bang their hand on door frames when opening them. Scissors, can openers, knives – the list is endless! It can all leave a left-hander feeling like a square peg in a round hole; ‘gauche’ indeed!
As a southpaw myself, I can say that it’s a right-handed world all right, and down the ages, lefties have been given a pretty rough deal from society. Education and awareness in the form of such ideas as ‘Left-Handed Day’ which highlight the lefties’ plight has helped lead to a world that has evolved from beating left-handedness out of children to one where a huge range of gadgets for lefties are developed specially – something I’m more than pleased about!
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