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As a left hander, writing is difficult. Western writing favours right handers; from the direction of flow, down to the formation of letters. That coupled with
by Jaruzel 7y ago
As a left hander, writing is difficult. Western writing favours right handers; from the direction of flow, down to the formation of letters.
That coupled with mild dyspraxia, meant that I have a death grip on a pen - I grip it so hard the ends of my fingers turn white, all the while trying to control my movement as if an invisible force is constantly tugging the nib in random directions.
And don't get me started on fountain pens - they are explicitly designed to be 'dragged' across the page. As a left hander you mostly 'push' - I broke so many fountain pen nibs, until I eventually gave up using them.
Changing my grip on a pen now, would probably make all my issues worse, not better!
- probably_wrong 7y ago> And don't get me started on fountain pens - they are explicitly designed to be 'dragged' across the page. As a left hander you mostly 'push' A left-handed childhood friend of mine would place her folders at a ~45 degree angle, and write at an angle. That way, she was not pushing the pen from the left (smudge the paper with her hand), but rather pulling from top-left to bottom-right. That said I also abandoned fountain pens - writing with them looks nicer, but writing math quickly is a pain.
- nulbyte 7y agoA lefty myself, I actually prefer a fountain pen and haven't had much trouble with them. I find with a good fountain pen, I need much less pressure to write solid lines, and they don't get jammed up like ballpoints, making the inkflow more consistent. I also tend to write with the paper at an angle to match the shape of my arm.
- richardjdare 7y agoI'm also left-handed and dyspraxic. At school they gave me a triangular rubber grip [0] to put on my pen to help me hold it properly. Though I didn't get much better despite spending hours doing handwriting practice. At high school after I finally got diagnosed they lent me a little Amstrad laptop to do my work on [1] I can write neatly if I "draw" the words, but it takes ages. My handwriting hasn't been an issue since I left school, so I don't worry about it too much. [0] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Triangular-Pencil-Grip-5-Pack/dp/B004O7F1GI https://www.amazon.co.uk/Triangular-Pencil-Grip-5-Pack/dp/B0... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_NC100 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_NC100
- anonsivalley652 7y agoI was left-handed until about 4, but I don't remember it. The right-ies forced me into their cult. It's kind of moot because my handwriting looks like I'm having a seizure writing on a washer on spin-cycle in an earthquake. It also crawls up or down vertically over time, and looks just awful. Base lines are of no help to me at all. And then there's this Turkish artist friend of mine who can write at exactly an 60° angle freehand on a rough wall, backwards and in a mirror-image, perfectly beautifully (he does interior commercial work to pay the bills). :sigh:
- Jaruzel 7y ago> I can write neatly if I "draw" the words, but it takes ages. This is exactly me. If I treat words as little pictures I can draw each one neatly. It takes about 30 seconds for an average word though. I wasn't lucky enough to be allowed to submit my written work typed out at school, but I was given a concession to write 100% in capital letters, which at least meant my handwriting was legible (somewhat).
- jstimpfle 7y agoI used to get a really painful "cave" in the side of my middle finger, from the pressure that I applied to the pen, after writing a page or so. These days I'm barely handwriting, so I'm good.
- anonsivalley652 7y agoWhen I was a kid, several hundred moons ago, writing a certain sentence in cursive hundreds or even a thousand times was a real punishment. (Bart had it easy.)
- rob74 7y agoAlso left-handed - and I also hate fountain pens, but for another reason: as a left hander you move your hand over the fresh line you are writing, so the text ends up smudged with a fountain pen. Ball-point pens work better (mostly), and I refuse to contort my hand or write at strange angles to avoid this, that's a recipe for trouble. Fortunately I don't have to write a lot by hand anymore...
- Narishma 7y agoI don't understand this. Regardless of which direction I'm writing in, my hand stays below what I'm writing, so I don't see how I can smudge it.
- wffurr 7y agoCheck out the variation in hand positions in the One Note palm rejection configuration screen and you will understand: https://jonathanwylie.com/2015/02/26/how-to-use-the-onenote-for-ipad-drawing-tools/amp/ https://jonathanwylie.com/2015/02/26/how-to-use-the-onenote-...
- pjc50 7y agoI, like OP, am an "overhand" left-hander. Imagine a line bottom-left to top-right across the page, then mirror your hand in that plane. (I've no idea how I came to this adaptation, but I've always written that way)
- war1025 7y agoI think left-handers almost universally pick up that trait. I assume because letters are easier to form in that plane, either from top or bottom. (But also, I have no evidence to back that up other than that's how I've always done it)
- chadlavi 7y agoNope, lefty here who never saw the benefit in writing with "the claw". It looks like an ergonomic nightmare.
- pjc50 7y agoSo people used to think there was only one standard-issue type of brain, and that everyone's brain operated in the same way and could learn the same things equally well, and a single optimal technique could be developed and taught once to everyone. The Taylorist dream, among others. But left handed people kept stubbornly existing, despite the beatings. And then education discovered that dyslexia and dyspraxia are things. And the not-well-understood category of "non-neurotypical" people currently classified into conditions like autism, Aspergers, ADHD etc. Eventually we're going to learn to fit the technique to the human rather than the other way round. People over processes, and all that. This may explain why people have strong-but-wildly-different opinions about which programming languages are "intuitive". Maybe some are just ""left-handed"", in a very non-literal sense. (I'm a left hander from just slightly after the "beating children for being left-handed" era, but I expect there's someone in the audience who remembers it)
- arxpoetica 7y ago> Maybe some [programmers] are just "left-handed"... This is very insightful, and I'll try to remember it the next time I'm tempted to get in a debate about "the right way" with someone...
- huherto 7y agoSomething that I have to ask my self over and over when criticizing someone else code. "Is this wrong, or is it just not the way I would do it?"
- _glass 7y agoI remember that era. I was taught in the transition from the Socialist System (1991) to the Capitalist in (Eastern) Germany. Thanks for your comment, it very well resonated. Maybe that is why I constantly criticize process-driven tools, e.g. Jira, SAPCRM. We need creative tools like AutoCad or Emacs even for service clerks.
- jjeaff 7y agoEven if we make lots of adjustments to teach according to the child's needs, I think one glaring issue will remain and it's that we read and write left to right. Which is an issue for left handers no matter what. Pushing the writing implement and dragging your hand over what you just wrote seems inevitable.
- Doxin 7y agoHandwriting education is sorely lacking for left-handed people. Most often they are left to figure out things for themselves. Things you -- or other left-handed people -- could try: - Rotate your writing surface. The more you rotate your writing surface the more it changes the writing direction from left-to-right to top-to-bottom which solves a lot common issues. It may take some getting used to but it's a lot better than using a claw grip to bend your wrist out of the way of your writing. - There are "left-handed-inks" for fountain pens available these days. They generally dry quickly and resist smudging. Combine this with a pen that has a round tip: it won't give a hoot about which direction you're applying force in since it won't dig into the paper like a square or chisel tip will. - Use a calligraphers grip. Place the pen in your hand, the body of the pen resting in the web between your index finger and thumb. Rest the grip of the pen on your middle finger in a comfortable spot, some people rest it on the side of the fingertip but moving it up till past the knuckle places it in an area with more padding. This does necessitate rotating your paper to avoid smudging but it does make applying less force to your pen a lot easier. If you still have pressure problems with this grip you can try modifying it by resting the pen on your index finger instead and holding it with your thumb. - I'd consider this somewhat of a last resort since it's not quite the best writing technique but you can try holding the pen some ways above the grip. The extra distance from your writing can be just enough to avoid smudging. The world sure isn't built for left handed people, but it seems to me that a lot of suffering could be avoided by including specifics for lefties in writing education.
- Cu3PO42 7y agoI feel your pain. I am also left-handed and during school times switched pen nibs every other month since they kept deteriorating. And I never quite got the hang of avoiding smearing. I switched to writing almost exclusively on tablets a few years ago and it's so much better for me. I can't quite put into words how much of a difference it makes for me. Smearing is a non-issue and the pen glides fine either way on a glass surface. There are some other benefits as well: I can no longer loose my notes and I'm a lot better about filing them away neatly digitally than I am with physical notes, but I suppose that might be a very personal thing. Having them indexed occasionally comes in handy as well. I went from a Surface to an iPad Pro and vastly prefer the latter. If you haven't yet I would recommend giving it a try. These days even the normal $329 iPad supports the Apple Pencil and provides incredible value in my opinion.
- rlkf 7y agoI second the suggestion from /u/Doxin to rotate the writing surface; see the illustration here: http://www.handedness.org/action/leftwrite.html http://www.handedness.org/action/leftwrite.html
- aidenn0 7y agoMy dad is left-handed and learned with fountain pens. He writes with his wrist bent inwards very sharply so that he can drag the pen without smearing the ink. To get an idea of what it looks like: bend your wrist to about 90 degrees, hold it so the "point" of your wrist is pointing towards the top of the paper, hold the pen so that it is tilted to the left of the paper going down and the right of the paper going up. Your pinky should be the only thing in contact with the page, and should be far enough towards the top of the page that it doesn't drag through the tallest letters you draw. It's the most awkward looking way of holding a pencil I've seen.
- Graziano_M 7y agoI'm a lefty and I write with the sheet rotated a full 90 degrees CW, so I write towards myself. This keeps my hand 'below' the written line.