Re: New TECHWR-L Poll Question - Left or Right?

[<neilson -at- alltel -dot- net>]

Lisa M. Bronson asked if anyone's had to document something
especially for lefties.

No, but I've seen an Army field manual for US soldiers
in Iraq during WWII, in which they advise lefties avoid
using their left hands while eating.  There's a neat
cartoon of a frustrated leftie GI sitting on his left hand
while eating right-handed.  To use your left hand for
any polite activity was a gross insult.  It was reserved
for one very unsanitary and private purpose.  The Iraqi
punishment for theft is to cut off a hand--the right hand.

It's amazing how good the documentation was: I have not
seen that book in maybe 40 years but I remember it and
the lesson perfectly.  No doubt it served the GIs
very well.

The bad treatment of the left hand is very old.  Observe
the Latin words dexter and sinister.  Observe that the
words for right are related in many Indo-European
languages (dexter, derecho, droit, and recht come
immediately to mind) but the words for left are mostly
not, viz., sinister, izquierda, gauche, and links.  It
seems the word sinister was so sinister that a euphemism
was needed.

--Peter Neilson


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