Left Handed People, page 1


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reply posted on 4-12-2004 @ 11:18 PM by petey_pongo23
I'm left-handed...I was in a gifted program from the 2nd grade up until now where I am a junior in college and a part of my college's Honors Program. I'm pretty much the most intelligent person in my family, but that's like saying I'm the tallest munchkin in the Wizard of Oz, it doesn't hold much water. The reason that I am so smart though isn't because I know a lot of things, it's because I ask a lot of question, which is probably the reason that I enjoy the ATS/BTS boards so much. If there is one thing that I absolutely hate, it is not knowing something that I think I should know. My intelligence scale isn't really anything extraordinary, but it's not anything that's horrible either. I think my IQ is around 153 or something, and I scored a 29 on the ACT before I stopped taking it, because that was good enough to get me into college. My personal belief is that stanardized tests are a load of crapola, because I am obviously not that intelligent. Also, I believe that grades are simply letters and numbers while we are in school, and nothing more. A degree is a piece of paper, which you can laminate if you so desire, meaning that you took enough courses in a particular area so you can get a picture frame to put a piece of paper in saying "Good Job".

Real intelligence comes from within, if I've learned one thing in my 20 years on this planet, it is that. If you say that you are smart, then more than likely you really aren't. Now, I realize that someone will be wanting to say something to me on this one, because I did make a comment about my intelligence; however, I also made several stating that there is so much more that I need to learn.

Please do not link me to Socrates on this thought, because he was quite arrogant. So was Seneca. How can you be humble if you keep telling people you are? I make good grades, but that doesn't make me intelligent. I'm in the Honors Program at the college level, but that doesn't make me intelligent. I know that there are more things out there in the world that I need to learn about, and that my friends is what makes me intelligent. It isn't the fact that I know things, it is the will that I have to learn new things.

However, since I am left-handed, apparently that makes me a serial killer? Honestly, I am fascinated by serial killers, especially Jack-the-Ripper. Mainly because he was left-handed, and the lefties just didn't get any respect when I was in school. I was 19 years old before I finally sat down in a left-handed desk (minus that time I took the ACT at a different high school when I was like 16). I wrote letters to the school board in middle and high school asking why we couldn't have left-handed desks. They never replied to me with actual answers, just that the demand wasn't high enough. That is probably the same reason that I didn't do too well in arts and crafts back in kindergarten (sp?...see, not that smart am I?) with those right-handed scissors (Mr. Burns was right...) that I had to use. However, I am great at "marth" too, because I can add numbers good (yes, "good", because "well" is something with water in it, but so is "whale", don't you just love the English language?).

Here is an interesting tidbit about me that hardly anyone knows. As well (okay, so I used "well" instead of "good", so what if I'm a hypocrite, so is everyone else) as I have done in school, I didn't learn to tie my shoes until I was 7-years old...the last person in my grade to do so...


reply posted on 7-3-2005 @ 08:37 PM by ZTJank
What I'm about to post isn't proven fact, but theory, so don't assume it's all correct.

At the University of Pennsylvania (this info is from some time ago) researchers claimed they could identify distinctly two types of left handed people. There's lefties that mimic the way right-handed people write, and then there's (about 60% of the lefties) the ones that kind of hook their hand around the pencil so that it points towards the bottom of the page when they write.

Anyway, I'm sure you've all heard of contralateral neural control, in which the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body and the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body.

Anyway, in most people, the part of their brain that controls language is usually opposite of that which controls writing.

But with the hook-writing lefties, studies have shown that both writing and language are organized on ONE side of the brain, meaning that one side of the brain is compensating for both sides of the body. This means that hooking lefties neurological organization is different than most other peoples.

This extra load for one side of the brain forces hooking lefties brains to work harder than usual, which usually makes their brain fairly capable of more things (i.e. intelligent), or too weared out (i.e. not so smart). This is one simple explanation, and I have to give credit to Cecil Adams, I mostly paraphrased his article at
www.straightdope.com... on the issue. I encourage you to visit there for a delightful array of topics.

-- Zach Jankowski
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