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Re: Handed ness and Language

Posted: Sat Apr 24, 2021 6:24 am
by jimbob
sTeamTraen wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 8:54 pm
I'm extremely right-handed. I heard both words clearly in each case. There doesn't seem to be a poll option for that. Can I get paid lots of money to take part in advanced studies of my apparently stereophonic brain?
Likewise, except that it was slightly more easy for me to process it from my right ear. If it was a phrase, it would be very strongly right ear. But individual words, OK with either

Re: Handed ness and Language

Posted: Sat Apr 24, 2021 6:26 am
by jimbob
Gfamily wrote:
Mon Apr 19, 2021 12:04 pm
lpm wrote:
Mon Apr 19, 2021 11:37 am
Why is speech different to music?
The issue isn't whether you can hear better in one ear rather than the other, the issue is whether there is a difference in the Broca's area, where language is interpreted.
Indeed. And individual words need less processing than actual conversations.

Re: Handed ness and Language

Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2021 1:47 am
by Millennie Al
Boustrophedon wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 6:59 am
Millennie Al wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 2:14 am


Actually, no. That's a third way that I hadn't thought of. It cuts keeping the same faces of the blades touching. What I was thinking of would swap faces as it swapped handedness, so what used to be the outside of the scissors becomes the inside.
I don't know why but I really want a pair of those.
Unfortunately, I can't tell you where to get a pair as I either invented them while reading this thread or they're something I saw but can't remember that I saw.

Re: Handed ness and Language

Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2021 8:12 am
by Tessa K
It's not that long ago there was a stigma about being left-handed - which still persists in some cultures.

The Latin for 'left' is sinister. The Church associated the left with evil and left-handed people were considered servants of the devil or witches. A lot of left handed people were forced to become right handed.

My mum's school reports noted that her handwriting was good for a left hander (she's 91).

Re: Handed ness and Language

Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2021 1:34 pm
by bagpuss
Tessa K wrote:
Mon Apr 26, 2021 8:12 am
It's not that long ago there was a stigma about being left-handed - which still persists in some cultures.

The Latin for 'left' is sinister. The Church associated the left with evil and left-handed people were considered servants of the devil or witches. A lot of left handed people were forced to become right handed.

My mum's school reports noted that her handwriting was good for a left hander (she's 91).
A boy in my class at school was forced to become right-handed* by his parents and I'm not terribly ancient, at 51. That was incredibly unusual, at least in the UK, by that point though. I think I mentioned upthread, though, that my mum tried very hard not to make me be right-handed and probably went a bit far the other way in encouraging my left-handed tendencies more than was ideal - and that was because when she was young, in the 1940s, people being made to be right-handed was considerably more common than it was in the 70s.

In your mum's day, left-handers probably did have poorer handwriting because they would have been made to write with a fountain pen** and a left-hander writing with a fountain pen basically has the choice between smudging everything they write or twisting their hand to an awkward angle. And on top of that, we have to push the nib across the page which, unless you have either a left-handed nib*** or very smooth paper, preferably both, generally makes a scratchy mess no matter how neat your handwriting would otherwise be.



*His handwriting was, not surprisingly, appalling - very spiky and extremely hard to read - the fact that I still remember it gives some indication of how distinctively bad it was.
**And probably one that was naturally rather blotchier than the cartridge pens I was using years later.
***Which probably didn't exist in your mum's day. I didn't discover them till I was at uni, although they were probably available well before then.

Re: Handed ness and Language

Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2021 3:07 pm
by Tessa K
bagpuss wrote:
Mon Apr 26, 2021 1:34 pm
Tessa K wrote:
Mon Apr 26, 2021 8:12 am
It's not that long ago there was a stigma about being left-handed - which still persists in some cultures.

The Latin for 'left' is sinister. The Church associated the left with evil and left-handed people were considered servants of the devil or witches. A lot of left handed people were forced to become right handed.

My mum's school reports noted that her handwriting was good for a left hander (she's 91).
A boy in my class at school was forced to become right-handed* by his parents and I'm not terribly ancient, at 51. That was incredibly unusual, at least in the UK, by that point though. I think I mentioned upthread, though, that my mum tried very hard not to make me be right-handed and probably went a bit far the other way in encouraging my left-handed tendencies more than was ideal - and that was because when she was young, in the 1940s, people being made to be right-handed was considerably more common than it was in the 70s.

In your mum's day, left-handers probably did have poorer handwriting because they would have been made to write with a fountain pen** and a left-hander writing with a fountain pen basically has the choice between smudging everything they write or twisting their hand to an awkward angle. And on top of that, we have to push the nib across the page which, unless you have either a left-handed nib*** or very smooth paper, preferably both, generally makes a scratchy mess no matter how neat your handwriting would otherwise be.



*His handwriting was, not surprisingly, appalling - very spiky and extremely hard to read - the fact that I still remember it gives some indication of how distinctively bad it was.
**And probably one that was naturally rather blotchier than the cartridge pens I was using years later.
***Which probably didn't exist in your mum's day. I didn't discover them till I was at uni, although they were probably available well before then.
Her handwriting was neat if a bit ornate but the teacher still felt the need to point out she was a leftie. She went to the sort of school where pupils left at 14 (not a secondary school) so I don't know if they had fountain pens. If they did it would have been a very basic sort.

At my junior school we had to write in pencil until we were 8 or 9 and then got a school biro if our writing was neat enough.

Re: Handed ness and Language

Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2021 4:13 pm
by bagpuss
Tessa K wrote:
Mon Apr 26, 2021 3:07 pm

Her handwriting was neat if a bit ornate but the teacher still felt the need to point out she was a leftie. She went to the sort of school where pupils left at 14 (not a secondary school) so I don't know if they had fountain pens. If they did it would have been a very basic sort.

At my junior school we had to write in pencil until we were 8 or 9 and then got a school biro if our writing was neat enough.
That's what they do at the bagkitten's school - the pencil then biro thing. I was made to write with a cartridge pen from some point in juniors, I can't remember exactly when. I just remember having a pretty much permanently blue hand where, no matter how careful I was, my hand smudged some of my work.

The bagkitten, incidentally, is very much right-handed, despite 2 leftie parents. Apparently having 2 leftie parents makes you much more likely to be a leftie than the average, but you're still more likely to be right-handed. I was always very careful to hand her any cutlery, crayon, pencil, whatever, exactly in the middle, so as not to influence her handedness, but I confess to being a teeny bit disappointed when she showed herself to be very definitely right-handed. I quite like being a bit different and, because the inconvenience is usually minimal and therefore a long way from properly discriminatory, actually enjoy the occasional opportunity to be bolshie when things are set up badly for left-handers.

Re: Handed ness and Language

Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2021 4:25 pm
by jimbob
bagpuss wrote:
Mon Apr 26, 2021 4:13 pm
Tessa K wrote:
Mon Apr 26, 2021 3:07 pm

Her handwriting was neat if a bit ornate but the teacher still felt the need to point out she was a leftie. She went to the sort of school where pupils left at 14 (not a secondary school) so I don't know if they had fountain pens. If they did it would have been a very basic sort.

At my junior school we had to write in pencil until we were 8 or 9 and then got a school biro if our writing was neat enough.
That's what they do at the bagkitten's school - the pencil then biro thing. I was made to write with a cartridge pen from some point in juniors, I can't remember exactly when. I just remember having a pretty much permanently blue hand where, no matter how careful I was, my hand smudged some of my work.

The bagkitten, incidentally, is very much right-handed, despite 2 leftie parents. Apparently having 2 leftie parents makes you much more likely to be a leftie than the average, but you're still more likely to be right-handed. I was always very careful to hand her any cutlery, crayon, pencil, whatever, exactly in the middle, so as not to influence her handedness, but I confess to being a teeny bit disappointed when she showed herself to be very definitely right-handed. I quite like being a bit different and, because the inconvenience is usually minimal and therefore a long way from properly discriminatory, actually enjoy the occasional opportunity to be bolshie when things are set up badly for left-handers.
It's interesting at work - there was a distinct over-representation of lefties in parts of the design and development group, and one now-retired colleague was in a group of all left-handed postdocs who set up a university cleanroom left-handed in the 1970s. He was quite proud of that achievement.

Re: Handed ness and Language

Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2021 8:09 pm
by basementer
bagpuss wrote:
Mon Apr 26, 2021 1:34 pm
I didn't discover [left handed fountain pen nibs] till I was at uni, although they were probably available well before then.
Basesister used one while at high school, around 1970. Perhaps you didn't need to know about them because your school was sensible enough to adopt ball points, rather than insisting on fountain or cartridge pens?

Re: Handed ness and Language

Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2021 9:30 pm
by Boustrophedon
f.ck fountain pens to hell. I grew up in the decades where it was a "known thing" that fountain pens made your handwriting better and that Biros were too draggy for neat writing. Utter b.llsh.t.

If you are an arty farty type doing calligraphy fine but give me a rollerball or even a pencil over a fountain pen any day. My favorite is the Pilot V5.

Also edu-fascists from the 70s there are other styles of handwriting that are far easier and flow better than that f.cking italic style that doesn't even join up properly.

</rant>

Re: Handed ness and Language

Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2021 10:06 pm
by bagpuss
basementer wrote:
Mon Apr 26, 2021 8:09 pm
bagpuss wrote:
Mon Apr 26, 2021 1:34 pm
I didn't discover [left handed fountain pen nibs] till I was at uni, although they were probably available well before then.
Basesister used one while at high school, around 1970. Perhaps you didn't need to know about them because your school was sensible enough to adopt ball points, rather than insisting on fountain or cartridge pens?
Nope, I struggled* with cheap crappy regular cartridge pen nibs, at least through middle**school. In secondary we were allowed biros, thankfully. I had no idea left handed nibs existed until my parents bought me a left-handed calligraphy set when I was at university.. I lived in rural Warwickshire, and bought my school pens in the local Co-op, so fancy things like left-handed nibs didn't really make their existence known.

* though not as much as some. Something about my writing style seemed to work a bit better than others. Still needed to get new pens ridiculously often though, as the nibs would gradually get pushed apart down the split and then not work at all.
** middle school, not juniors - we didn't go to secondary till 12 for some reason I never understood. My secondary school had no 1st year.

Re: Handed ness and Language

Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2021 10:50 am
by Tessa K
I loved writing with a fountain pen. Getting one for Christmas or birthday was a big deal. I had one with a very thin nib, which I may still have somewhere. I miss doing handwriting. These days it's mostly shopping lists or quick notes.