Especially for you, AnnaS! I saw the notice on the MSN home page. I won't put any links, due to ads. If anyone wants any further info., just go to the above-mentioned page, Google, etc.
There is an official home page for this day, but it is apparently suspended due to billing problems. (!) This, from holiday insights, was the most fun one I found (on Google):

Left Handers Day

When: Always on August 13th


If you are a Leftie, Then Left Handers Day is just for you!

Left Handers, also commonly referred to as Southpaws, are the brunt of more than their share of jokes all year long. How do I know? Yup, you guessed it! It ain't easy being a leftie. But those of us who are, would have it no other way. Lefties are proud of it.

The world is built for right handers. Examples are everywhere. For example:

In school, have you ever seen a left handed desk? They don't exist.
Many left handed items cost more.
Novelty coffee mugs are made with the picture or text for a right handed pick-up.
Scissors for for right handers. Only a lefty would understand this.
The computer mouse you are using as you read this is designed for right handers.
Did you Know? Right handed people operate in the left side of the brain. Left handed people use the right side. Therefore, only left handed people are in their right mind.

Left Hander's certainly earned the right to have a day dedicated to them. And, August 13th is that day. So take a minute to appreciate your left handed friends and loved ones. Don't forget to send them a Left Handed Day Ecard to show your respect.

Remember today and every day: "Lefties have rights!"


Left Handed Facts and Trivia:

Sinistrophobia is the fear of left-handedness.
While many people are left handed, very few are 100% left handed. For example, many Left handers golf and bat right handed. On the other hand, there is a high percentage of righties who are 100% right-handed.
Lefties are also called "southpaws". The term was coined in baseball to describe a left handed pitcher.
Tuesdays are Lefties luck day.
Only about 10% of the population is left handed.
During the 1600's people, thought left handers were witches and warlocks.
International Left Hander's Day was first celebrated on August 13, 1976. It was started by Lefthander's International.
They say everyone was born right handed, and only the greatest overcome it. (he,he,he)
It is believed that all polar bears are left handed. Also see Polar Bear Day.
There is a rumor that octopuses have but one right hand. Scientists are diligently studying this issue.
Think about it: Everyone is a Left Hander in Left Hand, West Virginia.


Lefthander's Slogan: "Everyone is born right-handed. Only the greatest overcome it". ...Brilliant Author unknown

!eikcaJ ,sknaht ,woW

I'm not AnnaS (I think), but it is nice to know that I am one of the few within the few, as it were.

Huh? The computer mouse I'm using as I write this is symmetrical.
And it happens I have the right button set as the primary button.

I ain't left-handed.

! ynapmoc doog ni em redisnoc I ; qxamjs dna SannA tulaS dna ecarG
,eikcaJ,tulaS
ytfeL

They ARE witches and warlocks!

Really, AnnaStrophic and sjmaxq witch and warlock? No... could this explain the stickiness of this board? Dark powers on the prowl? (ò_ó)

[ Warlock may come from the hypothetical (unattested) Old English waer-loga, "oath-breaker", or it may come from the (fully-attested) Old Norse Vard-lokkur, "caller of spirits".

Generally when looking at the origins of the words "warlock" and "witch"(along with others), the Anglo-Saxon and Old English often need to be traced to the Nordic languages. This makes sense when it is realised that the Celts of Central Europe originated from the northern tribes, before their culture mixed with that of the Mediterranean lands and the aboriginal races of what is now Britain. It is well-known that due to difficult access of the remote northern areas (i.e., for the Romans), the Nordic/Saxon cultures retained a greater degree of purity within their customs and language, so this may also be a contributing factor .]

"caller of spirits". (see parallel thread : Dry )

the Celts of Central Europe originated from the northern tribes, before their culture mixed with that of the Mediterranean lands and the aboriginal races of what is now Britain. It is well-known that due to difficult access of the remote northern areas (i.e., for the Romans), the Nordic/Saxon cultures retained a greater degree of purity within their customs and language, so this may also be a contributing factor
Hey, thanks for that--I can never remember who did what, or came from where, over there. I think my mind simply lumped them all under the title "invaders", and decided that anything beyond that doesn't really matter.

This makes sense when it is realised that the Celts of Central Europe originated from the northern tribes, before their culture mixed with that of the Mediterranean lands and the aboriginal races of what is now Britain. It is well-known that due to difficult access of the remote northern areas (i.e., for the Romans), the Nordic/Saxon cultures retained a greater degree of purity within their customs and language, so this may also be a contributing factor.

Hmm, Germanic poses a problem as a branch within IE languages. Fully a third of its vocabulary is not traceable to PIE or the other IE languages. This may be because they preserved this word hoard, but it may also be because they absorbed some locally spoken non-IE languages. Professor Theo Vennemann has suggested that Proto-Germanic may have been a creole spoken which developed when Old European (his cover term for aboriginal, non-IE languages in Europe) and IE collided. Not sure I'd go that far, I find it hard to believe that pre-IE Europe was unified in language.

I've never seen a reference to a northern origin for the Celts. I thought they came in off the Asian steppes with the other IEs. You might want to look at some of the recent scholarship on the "problem of the Celts". See The Celts: A Short Introduction, The Ancient Celts, or Iron Age Britain, all three by Barry Cunliffe, Atlantic Celts by Simon James, or Celts: Origins, Myths, Inventions by John Collis. (James and Collis are amongst the so-called Celtoskeptics, of which see Professor Patrick Sims-Williams' "Celtomania and Celtoscepticism." Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 36 (1998): 1-36.)

Alas, I can't trace back where I got that fragment from. I followed a vague Internet path.

The book on language I'm now reading gives the Celts as turning up in central Europe round 1000 b.Chr. as a rather small but succesfull group that spreads all over Europe till they cover from The Middle East to the utmost West point of Ireland. No mentioning of Nordics here either.
So I suppose they came just like Jackie and you thought with the IE hordes, settled in the Rhine, Rhône, Danube area, became many and started moving around all over Europe. (for a little while).

Yes, invaders of many kinds they were. Franken, Friezen, Saksen, Batavieren, Kanninefaten.
(and a few warlocks too )

It depends on what one means by the term Celt or Celtic. For linguists, the term Celts means speakers of one of the Celtic languages, either living (Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Breton) or extinct (Cornish, Gaulish, Celtiberian, Lepontic, Galatian). These languages are or were located in the British Isles, northern Italy, France, Belgium, and the Iberian peninsula. Galatian was the one outlier in Asia Minor, but there is a controversy about whether the Celts there immigrated from west to east or east to west. Celt as an ethnic term is one used (borrowed or coined) by the ancient Greeks and Romans, and though based on contact with actual people, who may or may not have spoken a Celtic language, soon become something of a synonym for barbarian. The term in archeology is associated with a wide-spread (in Europe that is) collection of cultural artifacts (La Tène, Hallstatt, etc.) that may or may not have been produced by Celtic-speaking peoples. It is this identification of certain iron-age and bronze-age cultures that is coming under scrutiny in the books I mentioned in my previous posting to this thread.

Thanks ZM for bringing up the words "La Tène" and "Hallstatt" . Brings back our impressive Art history teacher:the great Mrs. Giacometti. Who took us from there through the ages of European Art. Juggling casually with migrating populations. She always wore a turban. What it stood for or hid none of us ever knew. Jokes and guesses.
She motherly invited first year male students who looked interesting and slightly underfed to plates of oatmeal porridge.
(No, let the dirty mind lobes sleep), that's all there was to it.
Oatmeal must be good, they got remarkably good marks.

(I've noted your book recommends)

After a lifetime of using "normal" scissors left-handedly, I bought left-handed ones and found I couldn't use them. I was too ingrained in the weird (and painful) twisted way one needs to hold "normal" ones.
I was the only 'corrie-fisted' one in our church badminton club, so although they were accustomed to the different style of a left-hander, I wasn't. Until the team began visiting other clubs and I met my first 'cack-handed' opponent and was demolished.

I bought left-handed ones and found I couldn't use them Oh, dear. [shaking head e]
You're in Scotland? Cool, and welcome aBoard! Wave to jmh up (down? over?) in Edinburgh for me.