Re: left and right

"Southpaw" has much wider use than just boxing; it's a completely
general (if slangy) synonym for "left-handed person", and which
probably caught on because standard English has no simple word for the
person as opposed to the trait.

Its etymology is in no wise mysterious or Madagascaran, though.  It
comes from baseball, where the diamond is traditionally positioned
with home plate to the west.



On 4/4/08, Lars Finsen <lars.finsen@...> wrote:
> Den 4. apr. 2008 kl. 08.48 skreiv JR:
>
> > There's a chapter by Edward Louis Keenan and Elinor Ochs in
> > _Languages and Their Speakers_ called "Becoming a Competent Speaker
> > Of Malagasy," where they describe their experiences in a rural
> > community in Madagascar. One thing they note is the use of the
> > cardinal directions ("north", "south", etc.) instead of "left" and
> > "right". I don't know if there are no words for the latter at all,
> > but they write that the concepts are not available to the speakers,
> > "at least without reflection." They tie this in with the strong
> > cultural tendency to keep attention away from individuals. Saying
> > that something is "to the north" instead of "to my right" achieves
> > this.
>
> Interesting. So apparently they think of people as normally facing
> towards the west. And maybe the idea of a "southpaw" in boxing is
> ultimately borrowed from Madagascar. Why not? Stranger things have
> happened.
>
> LEF
>
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Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>

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