An Orange County, California, listener describes how both his left-handed parents were forced as children to learn to write with their non-dominant hand. Their handwriting looked unusual, to say the least. Grant discusses myths about handedness and recommends the book Handwriting in America: A Cultural History by Tamara Thornton. By the way, if you’re looking for the word that means “written toward the left,” it’s levographic. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Myths About Handedness”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, how are you doing?
Hi, doing fine. Who’s this?
This is Ryan, calling from Orange County, California.
Hi, Ryan, welcome.
What can we do for you?
I heard you guys talking about handwriting and just different styles and whatnot,
And it led me to think about driving down south with my girlfriend from Orange County, San Diego,
And was called in to basically make the comment that my mother and my father both left-handed,
Both were forced to write right-handed growing up in elementary school and whatnot.
And my dad was kind of, they got off that track when my dad wouldn’t really comply with the request.
My mom was forced with tying her hand behind her back writing right-handed.
And she still does to this day.
Oh, my gosh.
Wow.
They literally tied her hand behind her back.
They physically tied her hand behind her back.
Oh, my gosh.
This was a public school?
Yeah, it actually was in Lemon Grove in San Diego County, which I thought she was schooled mostly in Idaho, so I learned a lot myself.
And my dad tried to do the same thing. It didn’t really work out, but my mom is still the state right, right-handed.
Does she do anything with her left hand?
Yeah, she eats left-handed. She golfs left-handed. She does all of her sports. She was a college athlete and did all of her sports left-handed.
And Ryan, what does her handwriting look like?
It’s unique, to say the least.
I don’t have background in terms of phrases used, but it’s actually loopy and it’s large.
I mean, she probably can’t write in a single-line college paper if life depended on it.
I mean, she has these big letters, very exaggerated curves and whatnot.
You know, that happened with my grandmother, too.
She was forced to write right-handed when she was clearly left-handed,
And I have never seen handwriting ever like hers.
I mean, as you said, it’s unique.
I’d know it anywhere.
I loved seeing it on those checks that came in with the birthday cards every time.
It made it a little more special.
There’s a number of books that I can recommend.
One of them I will mention right away is Handwriting in America, a cultural history by Tamara Thornton.
Just a great, good summary.
Goes very much into this kind of thing.
The handedness really comes into play here and also talks about the methods by which we force people to write like us.
And it’s very funny.
Handwriting behaves like language.
We expect people to write like us.
And certainly in schools, it’s a place where they enforce a very strict,
Second, third, fourth, whatever grades, they enforce a very strict alphabet.
You know, you must start your letter at this point on the page and finish it here,
That sort of thing.
Do you think that it still occurred in this day and age
When it was more prevalent a few years ago, I would imagine?
That’s right, yeah.
It was more prevalent a couple generations ago.
It does still happen here.
You’ll still find it in parochial schools.
Really?
Yeah, definitely.
It still happens.
And there are a lot of old myths about handwriting and handedness that aren’t true.
People will sometimes tell you that to be left-handed indicates that you’re, well, good or bad.
They’ll say that means that you’re more likely to commit mischief or they’ll say you’re more likely to be brilliant.
Both of these things are statistically shown to be false.
In the Middle East, for example, even in France, they practically beat left-handedness out of you.
And in the Middle East, it’s a different because there’s a hand you eat with and there’s a hand you do your business with.
And so there’s other cultural reasons for it there.
Do you know the word that means written towards the left?
I do not.
Levelgraphic. L-E-V-O-G-R-A-P-H-I-C. Levelgraphic.
Oh, levo from Latin, lius meaning left.
Exactly right.
I didn’t know that.
Well, thanks a lot, Ryan.
Thanks for calling.
Thank you.
All right.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
If you’ve got something you’d like to tell us about your family, something to do with the language, handwriting is language-related, right?
Right.
Yeah.
Pronunciation, spelling, grammar, old sayings, jokes, riddles, laughter.
Bring them on.
Bring them on.
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