You have to realise that when you are one, you tend not to take any notice of it, but it’s not until you get a little older that you realise you’ve been repressed from day one…

I can remember my mum telling me that when she was at school the pupils that were had to sit on theirs, because it went against the grain of what was seen as normality.  Well that’s just bloody typical of the masses isn’t it!  What a start in life.  As if the first day at the higher seat of learning wasn’t bad enough, some arse notices that you’re left-handed!

Thankfully, more and more people are aware of the problems of living in a predominantly right-handed world.  Not that a right handed person would take much notice.  Well I say, give ’em a left-handed cheque book and a pair of scissors to play with for a week and see how they get on!  And once they’ve mastered those seemingly innocent objects, put them in a room with a left-handed ruler and a spud peeler!  [Dear lefties, I’ll bet my next week’s wages that at this point the right-handed amongst are looking at each other with a quizzical look on the faces.]

For those of you who don’t know, hand orientation is developed in foetuses’, and is largely determined by observing which hand is predominately held closest to the mouth.  So, if you are a lefty, you’re in a select club, as I believe just 10% of the world’s population use their left hand more than their right.

Now you would think that you could leave the subject there wouldn’t you?  But oh no, somewhere along the line a bunch of pillocks made it their sole duty to spread a heap of malicious gossip, rumours and groundless facts about the left-handed community – largely, I suspect, because they had little else to do and television hadn’t been invented.

So why have the left-handed people of the world been persecuted down the centuries?  Two old faithful subjects I’m afraid, the uneducated and the help of a certain amount of religious faiths.  How the hell can religion creep its way into the left and right-handed debate is beyond me.  Still, where there’s a will there’s a way I suppose.

I guess you just make stuff up to suit your own ends, slap it in a book, then tell everyone you meet that it’s the gospel truth!  It seems back then, if you could get past the inane folk law and superstitions, some of which are still believed to this day, you might be lucky enough to have avoided being burned to death at the stake as a witch. 

Did you know that in some countries if a child is seen using their left hand, it’s tied behind their back, at home and at school!  And certain religious faiths believe that if you eat with your left hand, you are feeding the devil with your right.  What have you got to be taking to make this shit up? 

So it seems as far back as year dot, we ‘the strange ones’ have been suppressed.  Historically, the left side, and of course left-handedness, was considered negative in many cultures – brilliant!  And if that wasn’t bad enough, some how from the Latin word, sinistra,which originally meant ‘left’, some bastard managed to turn it around to mean ‘evil’ or ‘unlucky’!!!  Fer fuck’s sake – how the hell did that come about?  Too many recreational drugs my nan reckons.

And it didn’t stop there either.  While everyone who could, were making up shit as they went along, somebody managed to convert the word, ‘sinistra’ to the English word, sinister!  Well thanks for that ya wanker!

However, evidence shows that lefties been around for a long time and aren’t about to disappear any time soon.  If you were an Inca, you would have been known as a top dog, the main man, because the indigenous people of the Andes considered that left-hander’s possess special abilities, including magic and healing powers.  And get this, in Tantric Buddhism the left represents wisdom!  Yeah baby, so take it out of that you right handed buff-oo00ns!

And let’s not forget that well known Russian literary offering written by Nikola Leskov in 1881.  He had a character in his story called, ‘levsha’ which means, lefty or left hander.  Thanks to the success of his work, the word ‘levsha’ became a common noun for skilled craftsman after his book was published.  The book title?  Surely you’ve heard of it?  Oh well, here it is for your reference, it’s called ‘The Tale of Cross-eyed Lefty and the Steel Flea’.  Trust me, it does exist, and what a great read and friend it must be when you and your family book a holiday to the Butlins branch of Siberia!!!

Left, well I’m off, I’m looking to buy a left-handed ashtray and some left-handed darts…

This entry was posted on Monday, June 13th, 2011 at 3:59 am and is filed under Neils Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.