Question to watch wearers.

[snail]

I wear my watch on my dominant (right) hand. Just tried it on my left, on the same strap hole, and it felt a little tighter but that might be just the unfamiliarity of it. That said, I am not fully ambidextrous but have always used both equally when clay modelling, for example, and type properly with both hands, so am relatively balanced. Or not - as I am mixed-lateral/cross-dominant and have a dominant left foot and eye.

[Greenbank]

That said, I am not fully ambidextrous but have always used both equally when clay modelling, for example, and type properly with both hands, so am relatively balanced. Or not - as I am mixed-lateral/cross-dominant and have a dominant left foot and eye.

I'm naturally right dominant in most things (foot for kicking, hand for writing/racquet sports, etc) but over time I've forced myself to use the other. Aged 8 or so I decided to play football with my left foot only for a year, and they've been roughly equal since (although I probably just prefer the right foot, I think less when I shoot/pass/cross with my left though). In my teens I learned to write left handed too, it's slow now (just tried it) so it needs a lot of practice to get back up to speed. This was around the time I broke my right arm (green stick fracture) and trained myself to play tennis left handed* otherwise that summer would have been wasted.

It certainly took longer to put my watch on my right wrist, 45 sec instead of just a few seconds for my left.

Typing is not really a handed thing as I touch type (self taught so hands not in the exact traditional positions or not the 'right' fingers for certain keys but good enough for >100wpm).

Eyes are different as I'm 20/200+ in my right eye (even with glasses) and so my left eye (20/15 with glasses) is obviously more dominant now.

* Caused a bit of a stir in the local county competitions a few months later as I'd instinctively swap the racquet over to my left hand (and its forehand) to play a shot to my left instead of a right-handed backhand. Didn't go any further than that obviously!

[hellymedic]

My right-handed, ambidextrous sister uses a vegetable peeler with her left hand.

[drossall]

I'm left-handed and have worn a watch on my right wrist ever since I discovered, in the youth club, that my watch was falling off every time I hit a table-tennis ball. However, I'm not very left-dominant and would bat at cricket right-handed (and almost as badly as if I'd played left-). Ditto shooting. I have to think really hard about archery, and probably do it differently each time.

No obvious difference in wrist sizes when I swap the watch.

[Cudzoziemiec]

[OT] I think my male heterosexual Continental relatives wear a wedding band on their right hand.

Female too. I'm not sure about non-heterosexual. Possibly a Catholic v Protestant difference.

[Cudzoziemiec]

In my playground, it was earring sides that made you gay ("right ear, right queer").  Watch side was an indicator of left-handedness, with some sort of inconsistent generational side-reversal in the early digital era.

That said, chunky analogue watches on women are up there with carabiners and rainbow Venus symbol jewellery.  I'm not sure that there's a male equivalent.

Yebbut did the earring thing apply to girls too? Didn't when/where I was at school.

[Tim Hall]

My right-handed, ambidextrous sister uses a vegetable peeler with her left hand.

As some kind of portable sundial, or to actually peel vegetables ?

[hellymedic]

[OT] I think my male heterosexual Continental relatives wear a wedding band on their right hand.

Female too. I'm not sure about non-heterosexual. Possibly a Catholic v Protestant difference.

Well, we're  Jewish... 

Male wedding bands in our family are a new/optional/fashion thing. My Dad, brothers and brothers-in-law don't wear them.

[hellymedic]

My right-handed, ambidextrous sister uses a vegetable peeler with her left hand.

As some kind of portable sundial, or to actually peel vegetables ?

To peel veg. I think she bats with her left hand.

[Greenbank]

[OT] I think my male heterosexual Continental relatives wear a wedding band on their right hand.

Female too. I'm not sure about non-heterosexual. Possibly a Catholic v Protestant difference.

Not as simple as Catholic v Protestant. Caveat Wikipedia:-

The wedding ring is generally worn on the ring finger of the left hand in the former British Empire, certain parts of Western Europe, certain parts of Catholic Central and Eastern Europe (and some not so), Mexico and Bolivia. These include: Australia, Botswana, Canada, Egypt, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, the UK, and the US; France, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Finland, Catalonia and Valencia (not the rest of Spain); Czech Republic, Slovakia, Switzerland, Croatia, Slovenia, and Romania.

The wedding ring is worn on the ring finger of the right hand in some Orthodox and a small number of Catholic European countries, some Protestant Western European, as well as some Central and South American Catholic countries.[5] In Eastern Europe, these include: Bulgaria, Greece, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine. In Central or Western Europe, these include: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Netherlands [if not Catholic], Norway, and (Catholic) Spain (except in Catalonia and Valencia). In Central or South America, these include: Colombia, Cuba, Peru, Venezuela.

[TPMB12]

I'm not ambidextrous but I naturally choose to box or spar in other martial arts left handed. When introducing newbies to kayaking I once saw a SI E2 instructor offer a left handed paddle to a right handed person because they were struggling with learning paddle strokes. It worked because they found it they kayak left handed. Another kayaking friend did that when normally right handed.

I broke my left knuckle once and found out that despite being right handed the less than useful, broken left caused a lot of problems with close up work. It seems my left is not dominant but plays a greater role than a non-dominant if that makes sense. Perhaps I'm ambidextrous but fell in with convention by only using my right hand for dominant rules. My son from a young age always used either hand for drawing or writing. He's only 5 but he is the kind of person who doesn't worry about convention so perhaps he's going to use both hands equally.

[Kim]

My brother was a lefty for everything except handwriting (his inability to operate a right-handed golf club was particularly striking).  I suspect that he's mildly dyslexic, and found learning to write equally difficult with either hand, so went along with the default as taught.

I'm strongly right-handed, but there are fine motor skills I've learned to do amibdextrously as circumstances require, such as mousing and soldering.  When I wore a watch I preferred it on my right wrist, because the left just seemed wrong.

I also reckon there are plenty of tasks where your non-dominant hand does more of the physical work.  Certainly when riding a bike on dodgy surfaces, it's my left hand that clings to the bars for dear life.

I do wonder how it works for people like barakta, who are born with a significant difference in functionality between their hands.  Is she right-handed because she's got a righty brain, or because her right hand is so much better that doing things right handed was always going to be easier?

[TPMB12]

I must admit that when I broke my knuckle of my left hand it showed me how hands work. For example I had to learn to use the middle finger of my left hand for jobs my index finger did. I thought my finger and thumb grip strength and my dexterity would be compromised. I found out that the middle finger plays a significant role in gripping things and was as dextrous as my index finger.

Also, my left hand is more n than capable of close up and fine detail jobs. The sort of work you'd put to your dominant hand. IMHO apart from writing (a learned or taught task) my left hand must have been doing a lot of even most of the fine work all along. The dominant hand was only the strength hand, muscle if you like to the left's fine detail work.

It makes me wonder whether I am ambidextrous or even slightly a Leftie (in hand use only of course). Have I learnt to fit in with the dominant right handed society or am I really right handed?

[Samuel D]

There’s probably a lot of variety as with other human things. I am strongly right-handed but my left has marginally greater grip strength. I think this is in part because I use it for opening tight bottles, jars, etc., for the separate reason that the left hand is biomechanically more adept at that (whereas the right is better for closing those things).

[ian]

I occasionally, when I'm tired or not thinking, write my s's backwards which is apparently odd. Maybe I was, as my mother claims, once a lefty that was then conditioned to be a righty by Evil Forces.

[TPMB12]

Secret, sinister things going on here. Righties trying to be Lefties and Lefties being forced to be Righties. When will people just learn to accept you for the handedness you are? Handedism is forcing Lefties to conform and Righties trying appropriate Leftie's handedness culture.

Sorry, work is frustrating and I think I've lost the plot. The persons in white coats came for me, took a look and left me for a lost cause!

[hellymedic]

I also reckon there are plenty of tasks where your non-dominant hand does more of the physical work.  Certainly when riding a bike on dodgy surfaces, it's my left hand that clings to the bars for dear life.

I do wonder how it works for people like barakta, who are born with a significant difference in functionality between their hands.  Is she right-handed because she's got a righty brain, or because her right hand is so much better that doing things right handed was always going to be easier?

Though I'm not riding now, it was always my left hand that stayed on the bars. I found signalling left difficult.

[hellymedic]

Secret, sinister things going on here. Righties trying to be Lefties and Lefties being forced to be Righties. When will people just learn to accept you for the handedness you are? Handedism is forcing Lefties to conform and Righties trying appropriate Leftie's handedness culture.

Sorry, work is frustrating and I think I've lost the plot. The persons in white coats came for me, took a look and left me for a lost cause!

I don't think it's a sinister plot. More people are right-handed than left handed artefacts are mostly made right-handed. It's easier to fall in with the majority at times. I have two right-handed parents but three left-handed siblings, one of whom has a left-handed spouse but only one of their four sons is left-handed. The degree of left-handedness varies enormously. I can't imagine a couple of left-handed parents would pressurise progeny into any right-handed habits.

Here's a thing: men and women's garments button in opposite directions. Trying to dress with buttons the 'other' way is difficult but kids learn to cope with buttons of either orientation whatever their gender or hand dominance.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I thought the reason for gendered buttons was that in tolden days, ladies had maids to dress them but gentlemen did up their own buttons. But I can't remember where I heard that, maybe that's just retrospective invention.

[perpetual dan]

I’m right handed for writing, shaving etc. But a computerist that touch types and plays the piano, so left hand isn’t entirely useless. My occasional DIY hasn’t built noticeable arm muscles, so quite slim wrists (and don’t like chunky watches). Also earrings in both ears, but more in the left, which I daresay is a reflection on my character somehow.
I wear a Fitbit watch on my left wrist, the same strap hole feels much the same on my right - but a bit harder to do up.

[T42]

The other day I saw a video in which a right-handed luthier demonstrated a guitar he'd just finished, remarking in passing that it was a left-handed guitar but he'd do his best. The bugger played better than I do with my git the right way round.  I'm strongly right-handed, but my left hand has learnt to do quite delicate things that my right hand can't manage.

[TPMB12]

At uni a mate taught me a bit of guitar on his acoustic. It was a left handed guitar. I got on well with it and actually enjoyed the lessons so much I went out to buy a guitar. My mate came along and advised me. I walked home carrying a nice yamaha guitar and never got on with it I played my mates guitar more often than mine and that was only a week off practising / lessons.

It turns out that it was a big mistake to buy a right handed guitar after initiatially learning on a left handed one. Especially when you are actually a left handed guitarist. By that I mean I was unable to play with a right handed guitar. My hands/fingers didn't to the jobs they needed to do well enough. However swap the role of the hands around and they worked well.

I suspect left and right handedness is more like a spectrum. You can be completely left or right handed or anywhere on the line between. I am towards the right handed side but towards the middle I think. With practise I could write just as well with both hands but I'm not truly ambidextrous.

[hellymedic]

I doubt that anyone with a functional non-dominant hand would be completely unable to use it for any specific task should they lose the use of their dominant.

IMHO though things are easier with the dominant hand by habit, the non-dominant is wired in well enough to do the job if kicked.

[L CC]

No2Daughter (& No1Son) are lefties, but when she broke her left arm (aged 7) she started writing with her right hand. She's now entirely ambidextrous- and will write with whichever hand picks the pen up. Being 19, that means only on birthday cards, she texts and types with both hands.

For complex reasons I have an activity tracker on each wrist. The non dominant used to be narrower but now has metalwork in and is pretty much the same size.

The indent from my wedding ring (worn for 13 years) took 4 or 5 years to disappear.

[hellymedic]

Likewise, leftie brother broke left forearm at 9 during Easter hols, wrote 2 page essay with right hand (Mum had said JFDI but did write note to teacher).

Teacher complained about handwriting, which was fine but not quite regular, at the start of term.

I don't think he's turned ambidextrous but...