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Ambi(?)dextrosity

From:Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
Date:Thursday, September 25, 2003, 18:42
BP wrote:
> I'm actually ambidextrous. The long story is that > I'm lame since shortly after birth. I m=E1y have been > originally lefthanded since my mother is, but all > the physiotherapists concentrated on exercising my > right hand! In spite or because of this I've ended > up with a rather clumsy right hand on a strong right > arm, and a more nimble left hand on a weak left arm.
Hm, you ended up pretty much like my youngest sister, then. She rather aggressively considers herself to be a leftie, but while she indeed does writing and similar precision stuff with the left hand, she tends to use the right for tasks requiring physical strength - cutting wood with an axe, say - and is indeed stronger in the right arm. In addition, she eats righthandedly, but as people may recall, it's arguable that given the eating and fork/knife usage habits back home, eating righthandedly actually makes more sense for lefties and vice-versa. But I wonder if "ambidextrous" is really the word for this - isn't it supposed to refer to people who can use either hand for anything, rather than for people who use one hand for some stuff and the other for other? Now, I should be figuring out how to say "right" and "left" in my various conlangs - only Yargish appears to be having something, and that's the postpositions _-aj_ "to the right of" and _-ich_ "to the left of"! Andreas

Replies

Tristan McLeay <zsau@...>
Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>