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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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enthusiast
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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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Carpal Tunnel
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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
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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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