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>> Why should someone who can use both hands equally well be said to have two right hands?
If we take word etymologies literally, then the "two right hands" definition would seem absurd. If, however, we view the "dextrous" in its more figurative sense of skillfulness with one's hands, then the word histroy works quite well.
Left handers are not strictly "sinister," nor are right-handers always dexterous. Frankly, I'm glad language is so colorful in its imagery and metaphor.
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you certainly won't appreciate this, but ambisinistrous exists as a word -- its meaning (of course) is "clumsy, maladroit; the opposite of ambidextrous". supposedly this usage came out of hospital operating rooms. 
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Max,
Left on!! (from a fellow southpaw, who also notices these slights[sic]-of-hand with great harrumphing)
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In reply to:
no one has suggested PC alternatives for words such as "gauche," "maladroit," "ambidextrous" etc. Such terms are just as blatantly negative in their derivation and connotation as other words now considered non-U.
Just a thought but words don't come much less PC than U and non-U, surely? 
Bingley
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where and when were "U and non-U" coined?
(this one is not so easy to search for! :)
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today's dictionary.com word-of-the-day is gauche, for which the following is given as commentary:
The left side of anything is often considered to be unlucky or bad, and our
language reflects this. A "left-handed compliment," one that is insincere,
backhanded, or dubious, is not one you are happy to receive; a "left-handed
oath" is one not intended to be binding. Sinister, Latin for left, suggests
or threatens evil. Gauche is tactless, awkward and clumsy, but droit, the
French word for right, gives us adroit, skillful, and dexter, the Latin for
right, gives us dexterous (also meaning skillful). If you are ambidextrous,
able to use both hands with equal facility, then, etymologically speaking,
you have right hands on both sides (ambi-, on both sides). Left itself
comes from Old English lyft, left, weak, useless, since it names that hand
which in most people is weaker.
so, we are left(!) to draw our own conclusions....
[is the appearance of this word now just a coincidence? I think not!]
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>so, we are left(!) to draw our own conclusions..
I say here at work quite often that being clueless on the job is like the German national airline: The Right hansa doesn't know what the Lufthansa is doing.
TEd
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the current meanings of these words come from past superstitions.
obviously we can't change these superstitions, and some of the words, like sinster, dextrous etc, are probably here to stay.
for the original question, i hereby suggest "both-handed".
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Ted, your cantering to the post on a Lufthansa has had me
ROFLKFIA--I think. (did I get all the letters right, or is it rolling on THE floor laughing, kicking feet in the air?)
william, you gave me an idea, too: how 'bout even-handed?
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Two "rights" DO make a wrong. As a sinistral, I have decided to use the word correct instead of "right." "Dextor" does mean "right" in terms of a direction. It IS used to mean correct. For those of us in our "right" mind AND our correct mind, the term dexterous IS loaded.
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How about, "not shut as to the right hand." CHUCKLE. I would suggest "even-handed" were it not used in another sense. How about "universal-handed?"
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Thank you, and not only may you, Mr Max, but you must! I am only as good as my interlocutors, so half the credit is yours, for inspiration.
Now, here's a question: I understand the term "southpaw" is from baseball, referring to left-handed batters who stood facing south in some stadium. Can anyone shed light?
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>>Ted, your cantering to the post... Better than being left at the post, eh, Jackie?  (great pun, Ted... as usual)
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I quote from alt.lefthanders FAQ:
It seems that on many (most) baseball diamonds the left hand side of the pitcher's mound would face south. At one time, most ball-parks were constructed so that the setting sun was behind the batter so as not to be in his eyes. The LH pitcher's throwing arm would then be toward the South as he faced the plate.
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So we see how lefties have been shafted in more languages than English. The southpaw question reminded me of another leftish phrase related to baseball: "He's off in left field" being used to denote someone who is not in the mainstream. If the majority of batters are right-handed, then most balls would be hit toward left field. Why the negative connotation?
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I'm left with thinking about The Last House on the Left.
I'm one of those ambidextrous balls of confusion after getting hit on the knuckles for writing with my left hand by my 2nd grade witch/teacher.
I can live with this. I CANNOT live with handbidextrous — one of my pet peeves. And if someone ax me one more question, I'll scream.
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>After all, is not all life built exclusively from LEFT-handed amino acids?
Yes. but the sweet things in llife are on the right.
TEd
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Welcome, OmarKhyam. Hope we see more from you!
I put even-handed as a tongue-in-cheek suggestion--I adore
double-meanings!
michaelo, I don't think I've heard "handbidextrous", and I
think I am very fortunate in that! But I have heard, mainly
from a school principal, that she was going to "ax" somebody a question! Argh! Also--I am close to someone who was born left-handed, and forced by his elementary-school nuns to write right-handed---not a good thing.
My sympathies.
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>If the majority of batters are right-handed, then most balls would be hit toward left field. Why the negative connotation? you are right(!) -- right field was akin to banishment in little league (I know this), and even in the majors it is where you will usually find the weakest defensive player (outside of the DH ). William Safire poses two theories (in his book "I Stand Corrected"): 1) it was an insult hurled at kids stupid enough to buy left field seats at Yankee Stadium in the days when Babe Ruth (great hitter, poor fielder) patrolled right field for the Yanks -- but weren't most of his homeruns hit to left? 2) at the old West Side Park in Chicago there was a mental hospital in back of left field. as to southpaw, the baseball connection certainly seems plausible, but I have seen it said that the earliest known *written citation was in reference to a left-handed boxer. http://www.word-detective.com/093098.html
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In reply to:
where and when were "U and non-U" coined?
U and non U were coined in the 1950s by a linguist called Ross, and then popularised by Nancy Mitford. U stands for Upper class and the idea was that there were very obvious differences between upper and non-upper class vocabulary and usage.
Bingley
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Serendipitously, there’s a piece about lefthandedness in today’s Melbourne Age, from which I extract the following items of interest:
-- using the ‘qwerty’ keyboard, the number of English words typed solely by the left hand is 1447 (and by the right hand is 187)
-- ‘stewardesses’ is the longest word typed solely by the left hand
-- some say all polar bears are lefthanded
-- it is believed that God is righthanded.
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>> -- some say all polar bears are lefthandedAnd if they're ambidextrous, then they are bi-polar, right? 
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>some say all polar bears are lefthanded
somehow, calling them Southpaws doesn't seem bearable.
-ron obvious
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<bi-polar>
hippo-brillig, Jackie!!
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Of course, if the polar bear is standing actually _at_ the North Pole, then all of its paws would be south paws, as that is the only possible direction from there.
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>>-- it is believed that God is righthanded.
Right now, I'm left to note that this is enough to give everyone pause.
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of course god is right handed. he also has a grey beard, drives a foreign car, smokes a danneman cigar...
and he lives in the sky, which is why priests in tv shows always look up when they need help.
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I knew I'd find this thread eventually.
- ‘stewardesses’ is the longest word typed solely by the left hand
The following is from Word Flex for July 25th, 2001. I wish whoever writes this would say who they are, and cite their sources. The etymologies are always quite good reading.
AFTERCATARACTS (plural for a condition that sometimes follows cataract surgery) and TESSERADECADES are the longest words which can be typed using only the fingers of the left hand. The first word appears in a Merriam-Webster medical dictionary; the second is in Webster's 2. Other such words (some of which are not in dictionaries) are SWEATERDRESSES, STEWARDESSES, DESEGREGATED, DESEGREGATES, REVERBERATES, WATERCRESSES, AFTEREFFECTS, DECEREBRATED, EXTRAVASATE, GAZETTEER, REASSEVERATE, TERRACEWARDS, DEVERTEBRATED, AFTERWARDS, and REVERBERATED.
and
JOHNNY-JUMP-UP (a fast-growing flower or a brand name for a type of toy) is the longest word found in abridged dictionaries that can be typed using only the fingers of the right hand. Other such words (some of which are not in dictionaries) are LOLLIPOP, POLYPHONY, PHYLLOPHYLLIN, MIMINYPIMINY, HOMOPHONY, HOMOPHYLY, NONILLION, POLONIUM, POLLINIUM, POLYONOMY, HYPOPHYLLIUM, HYPOLIMNION, HYPOPHYLL, LUPULINUM, MINIKINLY, MONOPHONY, NIPPONIUM, and KINNIKINNIK.
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Thanks for resurrecting this, Jackie. Your post is great. And I suggest everyone re-read (or read for the first time, if you are a post-August 2000 AWADer) the entire thread. This is a very important issue for a handful of us.
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tsuwm, I'm wondering if the movie in your first link, Left Handed Gun, The, might have had its screenplay done by the author of the book in your second link, The Left Hand of Darkness
by Ursula K. Le Guin. Anna, I enjoyed rereading these posts, too.
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For a lot more information about Nancy Mitford and history of U vs. non-U, and a URL that may well be of interest
Ask A Linguist For The Most Recent
Messages
[Subject Prev][Subject Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Subject Index][Thread Index]
Re: 'U' and 'non-U'
To: 93cloughs@khv8.sch.coventry.uk, ask-ling@linguistlist.org
Subject: Re: 'U' and 'non-U'
From: Geoffrey Sampson <geoffs@cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 11:40:47 +0100
Delivered-To: ask-ling@linguistlist.org
You have already said what they mean, in your query. The terms originated
in exchanges between the novelist Nancy Mitford (_Love in a Cold Climate_,
etc.) and the linguist Alan Ross -- I am not sure which of the two actually
invented them. They were intended in a fairly lighthearted way to pick
out vocabulary which differentiated people at different points on the
English class ladder at the time (the 1950s, I think). Then, more than
now, there were words whose use stamped the speaker as lower-middle-class
or below, as opposed to the words which someone from the upper-middle-class
or above would use for the same things -- for instance, I think "serviette"
(a word I haven't heard for a long time) was non-U, v. "[table] napkin" as
the corresponding U term. Nancy M and Alan R produced long lists of these
pairs. Subsequently, the picture has been overlaid by the greatly increased
influence of American English on British English; the words that are usual
in the USA sometimes happen to coincide with the term that was U in England,
and sometimes with the term that was non-U, in a random pattern I imagine,
but the power of America "lifts" the status of its words in England even
if they were previously non-U. I get into mild trouble at home on this,
because I lived in the USA for several years in my twenties and sometimes
use terms which are deprecated by other members of the family, for instance
I am chided for talking of the "living room" rather than the "sitting room"
-- this may be because of my non-U upbringing, but I think in fact in this
case it is because Americans call it "living room" and after a while in the
USA I got confused about what to call it, and I suspect that this particular
pair of terms is no longer any sort of social marker in England since others
see American films, etc.
Prof. Geoffrey Sampson
School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QH, GB
e-mail geoffs@cogs.susx.ac.uk
tel. +44 1273 678525
fax +44 1273 671320
Web site http://www.grs.u-net.com
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this was answered by Bingley later in this same thread.
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I am right-handed. My right thumb, with which I normally hit the space bar, has become a little sore, so I am experimenting with switching this task to my left hand, with interesting results. My left hand, and particularly my thumb, is having no problem. But my right hand!
Oh, it just doesn't seem to know what to do with itself!
The thumb, of course, tends to hover, and drift towards the space bar. The unexpected thing is that my right hand loses its place after the space bar's been hit by my left thumb, esp. if the next letter is a right-hand letter!
I often have to stop, look, and re-place my right hand on its home keys.
If anyone else would care to try this switch, I'd love to know if you found the same thing.
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It's simple, said the centipede.
Thanks a whole lot, Jackie. Now I'm going to spend all day at this. The left thumb is having problems taking over the task.
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My mother said I might have started writing with my left hand but changed on my own... not sure about this. I remember much difficulty remembering the difference of "b" and "d" when I was not the least bit confused about their sound or the name of the letter I wanted to use. I suspect that the switch to my right hand may have related more directly to the schoolroom furniture. Nowadays, due to these computer keyboards, I rarely write anything unless it's my signature on a check or a R.O.C. I often feel that my left hand is better suited to using a screwdriver and I let it. When I studied German in college I learned that righthanded use of a knife is not followed by switching the fork back before consuming the severed morsel. I admired the utility of such a cultural norm. I recently discovered that I use chopsticks equally well with either hand, in spite of the fact that I set out to learn it with only one hand. Thinking that my eye-brain-hand condition may be unusual I recently wrote my name left handed... but you must hold it to a mirror to see that it truly is my signature. Now my point... I'm confused what all the fuss is about. I seem to have one of each, sinisterity and dexterity combined, and I don't feel insulted at all by either word. Perhaps you who protest too much should take up a trade with your weaker apendage and overcome the feelings of persecution by achieving that which you have heretofore felt was beyond your grasp.
Nosdrahcir Kram Nimajneb
Nosdrahcir
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If anyone else would care to try this switch, I'd love to know if you found the same thing.
WAIT... i'm puzzled.
are you supposed to use just one thumb or the other for the space bar? i just performed a test (i put honey on alternating thumbs then typed to see if the space key got sticky... [the reason for this extreme, BTW, is that i absolutely could NOT type at all naturally when i tried to concentrate on observing my thumbs; i wound up putting spaces within words, and my typing's bad enough as it is]).... anyhow, it would appear from my not-exactly-scientific experiment that the thumb i use for the space key is whichever one typed the last character in the preceding word. OTOH, i never took a typing class, so this is probably completely wrong.
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cd absolutely could NOT type at all naturally when she tried to concentrate on observing her thumbs
Trying to figure out how you do things can be very difficult. Sometimes all you can do is keep doing what you do and hope you'll notice after the fact. I know when I tried to use my left thumb I just got totally discombobulated® and both hands got thrown off (my touch typing is pretty tenuous anyway). The experiment lasted about 15 minutes.
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the thumb i use for the space key is whichever one typed the last character in the preceding word.
I did take typing, and I do exactly what you do. I didn't know this, of course, until I sprained my dominant hand's thumb three weeks ago playing basketball.
Spraining or breaking fingers wreaks havok on typists (which most of us are), but it surely puts me out of commission from doing my sign language interpreting. Up until a few years ago when I became a staff employee at a USn Federal agency, I worked *freelance. Back then, it was unpaid unemployment if I ever hurt my hands (or wanted a vacation, or took a day off, etc.).
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