Re: left and right

Why would that suggest a different origin? It takes awhile for special terms
to be coined; I'm sure that baseball players, just like those of any other
profession, did not start out with a large arsenal of slang and jargon right
off the bat.

Noelle
(delurking, hurrah)

On Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 10:45 AM, Lars Finsen <lars.finsen@...> wrote:

> Den 4. apr. 2008 kl. 14.16 skreiv Mark J. Reed:
>
>  "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.
> >
>
> Hm, according to Wikipedia it's first mentioned in the OED 1848, three
> years after the first organised baseball game, so maybe it has a different
> origin after all.
>
> LEF
>