When Left Became Right | Page 3 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

meanmistermustard said

Writing i’m right handed but for playing pool i’m a leftie.

Same.

I am also left-handed (or a ciotóg as we call ’em in Irish). Left-handedness seems to run on my mother’s side, my maternal grandfather is also a ciotóg whereas my dad and one of my brothers is right-handed.

I was the only ciotóg in my primary school class (about 20 girls). Fortunately the days are gone where the nuns would beat the living daylights out of you if you were left-handed (like my granddad who used to write with his left, when he was a young lad but was forced to change in primary school. To this day, he still writes with his right but does everything else with his left. My mam who was in school in the ’60’s and ’70’s also met nuns and teachers who’d hit her for using her left hand but the ScruffJuniors are quite stubborn and she never changed to be right-handed). 

I never really found it that much trouble being left-handed, I’m relatively ambidextrous and can use scissors etc. with my right hand. The only thing I find I can’t do is light a match, I end up burning my left hand (whatever way I hold it, the flame always seems to eat up quicker through the match when it’s in my left hand, I don’t know why). 

I also used to use my relatively poor handwriting* (my handwriting isn’t bad per se it just looks very unique. I might do up something tomorrow and let ye have a look), was part of my left-handedness (seeing as I was the only left-hander in the class). However, when I was 8, our teacher was also left-handed and she had lovely handwriting, so my theory fell to bits. 

*Fun fact: The only time I didn’t score ‘fair’ (i.e. terrible) in handwriting was in my very first year of primary school from the age of 4.5-5.5. Every single other year from 5.5 to 12.5 I got ‘fair’ in handwriting. My teacher didn’t even bother making me enter the county handwriting competition and I was allowed to not do art and instead read once I got to the age of 9. I just hated doing it because I knew I’d put no effort into it because everyone would just laugh at whatever I’d produce anyways (that sounds quite sad, I swear it isn’t, I know I’m rubbish at art). 

And another fun fact, the Irish for left-handed ‘ciotóg’ also lends itself to the Irish for clumsy ‘ciotach’…charming isn’t it? The same applies for French, left and awkward are both ‘gauche’, and the same for German, left is ‘links’, clumsy ‘linkisch’. English would never betray me like that though