Prince William wants George to be left-handed

[Northerner]

It has been reported that Prince William (a left-hander himself) wants his son George to be left-handed as well “so he can be a brainbox”. This follows a commonly held belief that left-handers are more intelligent than right-handers and that a disproportionate number of scientists, artists, musicians and world leaders are left-handed.

Tracing the left-handers in George’s royal bloodlines is difficult as a lot of them were made to change as children and were not “openly” left-handed. Queen Victoria (1837-1901) is widely reported as being naturally left-handed and, while she wrote with her right hand, she painted with her left, which is a good sign of a forced change.

http://www.anythinglefthanded.co.uk/prince-william-george-left-handed.html#sthash.HPhEFKfL.dpbs

I'm a leftie, as is my sister, Both parents were right-handed as are both nieces, but we think my grandad was a leftie forced to use his right. How ridiculous and cruel does it seem nowadays? I know in the past machinery was designed for righties and a working-class child could be at a disadvantage, but I wonder how much damage was done by forcing?

 

[Sally71]

My husband (a leftie) is always at loggerheads with his sister (right-handed, primary school teacher) about this. Hubby says that lefties always have terrible handwriting because of trying not to smudge the ink, and if you learn to drive a car or play a musical instrument you have to learn to use them as they are, you can't change everything round to the opposite side just because you are left handed. Therefore why can't you adapt to writing with the other hand. His sister says that children should be allowed to use whichever hand they feel comfortable with.

My dad was a natural leftie who was forced to write right handed. Long term it doesn't seem to have caused him any problems, he always had good jobs, but at the time he had nightmares about it apparently

 

[Northerner]

Hmm...I wouldn't agree about the handwriting, I can only think of one friend of mine who had poor handwriting, but he probably would have done anyway! 🙄 And what about cultures that write from right to left e.g. Arabic - do the 'righties' all have bad handwriting? It's true that lefties have to do a lot of things that are designed primarily for our right-handed society, and as a consequence we do tend to be more skilled at using our non-dominant hand than righties who don't have to make the extra effort. I learned guitar right-handed becuae I couldn't afford the extra fiver for a left-handed one 🙂 I bat/play golf right-handed, but racquet games are left-handed fr me 🙂

 

[Mark T]

Lefties are the best

Although with regards to smudging, it depends on which style of left handed you write. Some use a hand over/pen under style which does tend to smudge.

I tend to use a pen over which is more of a reversed right-handed style and doesn't tend to smudge so much.