‘Southpaws’- Lefties to win the world

Do you know about Southpaws? Southpaw is a nickname given to people whose dominant hand is the left hand. Roughly only 10% of the world’s population is left-handed.

August 13 is International Lefthanders Day. This special day for Southpaws was first observed in 1976 by the founder of the Lefthanders International Inc., Dean R. Campbell and was created to raise awareness of the advantages and disadvantages of being a lefty in a predominantly right-handed world.

Left handedness is more common in males that females. There have been many famous left-handed people. The right brain hemisphere is said to be more active in left-handed people and it has been found in some circumstances to be associated with genius and is correlated with artistic and visual skills.

Things that hate lefties are: spiral notebooks, ink pens, scissors, can openers, computer mouse etc.
As I am a lefty in my family, (not only me, there are two other lefties as well) I am proud to be a lefty. To the other lefties reading this, I want to say, don’t be discouraged because you a lefty, be proud!


Interesting scientific facts and myths about left-handers

1. Mostly use the right side of the brain
The brain is cross-wired, meaning that the right side controls the left side of the body and vice versa. Hence the well-known saying, ‘Only left-handed people are in their right minds’. The right-hand side of the brain is thought to co-ordinate the left side of the body and control tasks to do with arts and creativity. That’s likely why many writers, musicians, artists and other creators tend to be lefties.

2. Have a higher level of intelligence
Especially for Maths – because they typically use the right side of the brain – which is also associated with abstract thoughts and spatial reasoning.

3. Are good at sports
Lefties make good baseball and tennis players, swimmers, boxers and fencers. Almost 40% of the current top tennis players are lefties. Did you know that tennis champion Rafael Nadal is actually right-handed but learnt to play left to give himself an advantage? It certainly seems to have worked out nicely for the Spaniard.  
Thomas Richardson found that left-handed fighters performed better than right-handers because they have a competitive advantage in combat as their opponents are likely to be disorientated by their fighting stance.

4. There’s a presidential preference
If you are a lefty, you may want to consider running for president. Several recent US presidents were lefties including Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford. Ronald Reagan is said to have been ambidextrous. Further back, James Garfield, Herbert Hoover and Harry Truman were also left-handed. Some scientists theorize that lefties are capable of a wider scope of thinking which makes for a great presidential quality.

5. There are plenty of celebrity lefties
You may not know it unless you asked for their autograph, but many celebrities are left-handed including Tom Cruise, Jennifer Lawrence, Angelina Jolie, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Eminem.

6. Many innovators, artists and thinkers are left-handed
Through the centuries many of our most celebrated thinkers and artists have been lefties. From Aristotle to Leonardo Da Vinci, Albert Einstein to Marie Curie, Bill Gates to Oprah Winfrey our world would be a very different place without the numerous notable lefties.

Nithya Perera (14 years)
Holy Family B. M. V., Wennappuwa