Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Martin_Silenus 269 days ago
There is nothing cultural about an individual's ability to write with their right hand. Studies have been conducted on this subject: it is a physiological/neurological factor (which also applies to other parts of the human body).

I know this because, well... I'm a left-handed writer and it interested me at one point (strangely enough, I find it very difficult to throw something with my left hand; and I'm right-handed at tennis, and I kick with my left foot in soccer).

Culturally, there has been pressure in the past to use the right hand for writing. But this has been considered harsh for decades and is now seen as an archaic practice.

1 comments

In the past, left handed people were sometimes punished and forced to write with the other hand. Their right handed writing was an artifact of that culture.
> Their right handed writing was an artifact of that culture.

Sure. But that does not define a person as a right-handed writer. That's precisely why I wrote "individual's ABILITY to write with their right hand".

If you can't write with your left hand, because you never learned to do so, and you can with your right hand, you're a right handed writer. That's the only form of writing you can do.

Yes, the underlying handedness is independent of culture, but the actual ability is cultural.