We all know we live in a right-handed world. Every day, we use countless things that were designed for right-handers: refrigerators, microwaves, can openers, coffee mugs, corkscrews, notebooks, phones, scissors, cameras, and so on.

This arrangement creates two kinds of people: those who use everything the intended way, and those who have to figure everything out. Of course this affects the way we look at appliances, but in a bigger sense, can it affect the way we look at the world?

In David Wolman’s book A Left Hand Turn Around the World: Chasing the Mystery and Meaning of All Things Southpaw, he shares the thoughts of his father, a Harvard psychologist:

“Lefties can never accept the world as it is presented to them, always reconfiguring spatial arrangements, implements, and the like from right-oriented to left-oriented. My guess? The same thing happens conceptually, and lefties are often re-imaging ideas and concepts because of their proclivity not to take things at face value.”

Ask a right-hander how they write, and they’ll just show you. Ask a left-hander how they write, and there’s a good chance they’ll say “Well, I can do it this way, or maybe this way, or sometimes this way…”

Because they can’t just accept what’s presented to them, they’re forced to figure out their own way, and this mentality may extend beyond figuring out how to use a right-handed guitar or field hockey stick.

Which way is better? Well, there are obvious benefits to doing things the direct and efficient way. But if you get in the habit of doing everything on autopilot, you might get lazy and miss out on what can be gained from a novel approach.

On the other hand, there are obvious benefits to working out alternative solutions to problems. But if you insist on bypassing the standard route every time, you can get really burned out from overcomplicating things.

There’s room for both approaches: following a tried and proven path, as well as forging your own. And that’s true regardless of which hand you use.

For more stuff for lefties and righties alike, check out my ebooks Ambidextrous (for right-handers) and Ambisinistrous (for left-handers).

My post on mixed handedness generated a lot of interest, and I said I’d return to that topic after I had learned more about it. It turns out there was far too much information to put into a post, or even a series of posts. So I’ll be releasing it as an ebook in the near future.

One thing that surprised me was how astonishingly hard it is to get reliable information on whether certain famous people are left-handed, right-handed, or mixed-handed.

What often happens is someone hears that so-and-so is left-handed, so he puts that in a book without checking for any evidence, and before too long it ends up on a million web pages. It’s kind of annoying when you’re just trying to find the truth.

Here we see 6 famous people who regularly appear on lists of southpaws, despite the notable distinction of not being left-handed. (Thanks to Chris McManus for bringing these people to my attention in his book Right Hand, Left Hand.)

Billy the Kid

First on the list is Henry McCarty, AKA Henry Antrim, AKA William H. Bonney, AKA Billy the Kid. He’s been the most famous southpaw outlaw since Paul Newman played him in the 1958 western “The Left Handed Gun.”

It’s actually understandable that we always thought he was left-handed. After all, we only had one photograph of him, and it showed him with a pistol on his left hip, steadying a rifle with his right hand.

The problem is that we only had blurry copies of the original photo. After discovering the original more than 100 years after his death, we found that it was made using a technique that reversed the image.

Furthermore, the original was clear enough that we could see that the buttons were on the wrong side of his vest, and his belt buckle was backwards. The corrected version appears above, showing Billy’s pistol on his right hip.

Pablo Picasso

We only had one picture of Billy the Kid, but we don’t have that problem with Picasso. Actually, we have thousands of pictures of Picasso, and plenty of videos as well. The only problem is, he isn’t using his left hand in any of them.

Albert Einstein

You’ve probably seen this picture before, with Einstein writing on the chalkboard right-handed. He may very well have been mixed-handed, but he sure wasn’t left-handed.

James Michener

Pulitzer Prize winner James Michener was once nominated by Southpaws International as one of their southpaws of the year. He wrote to them to say that the only thing he used his left hand for was occasionally scratching his right elbow.

Bob Dylan

If Bob Dylan were completely left-handed, you’d think it would be easy to find a picture of him playing a guitar that way.

However, he may have been mixed-handed. In David Hepworth’s 1986 interview with Bob Dylan, Hepworth noted that Dylan autographed his album with his left hand.

Benjamin Franklin

The confusion here comes from Benjamin Franklin’s essay a petition of the left hand. It’s written from the point of view of a left hand, complaining about how he’s treated differently from the right hand. But is that enough to mean that Ben was left-handed?

The portrait above was painted by Mason Chamberlin, from life (i.e., in person) in 1762. Ben Franklin is shown holding a quill pen in his right hand. I have to think that the artist wouldn’t go to the trouble of reversing the image since the model was right in front of him, and Ben would surely have noticed had he done so.

At any rate, there are many possibilities between completely left-handed and completely right-handed. Take this handedness test to see where you fall on that continuum.

Do you know any other right-handed “southpaws?”

For more handedness myth-busting, check out my ebooks Ambidextrous (for right-handers) and Ambisinistrous (for left-handers).

Two hands can be better than one. A well-coordinated effort of both hands makes it possible to count to 255 on your fingers (FF in hexadecimal). But mixed handedness may have consequences. Photo by Hexadecimal Time.

I always thought I was left handed. Oh sure, I do some things with my right hand, but we go by the hand you write with, right?

Actually, handedness is not a binary choice, but a continuum from purely left handed to purely right handed. Researchers say that people often aren’t aware that they’re officially mixed handed.

In a common measure of handedness called the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory, people are asked to perform 10 specific tasks. Doing even one of them with the other hand makes you mixed handed. I do 6 with my left, and 4 with my right, putting me towards the neutral end of the “mixed left hander” category.

There are different versions of this test floating around. One of them lets you specify different levels of hand preference, and gives you a numerical score from -1.0 for a pure left hander to +1.0 for a pure right hander, with 0.0 indicating that neither hand is preferred overall. I got -0.2, or just left of neutral.

I made this Handedness test into a web application, to spare people from the math. Give it a go. I’ll create a page listing the scores people report, so leave a comment with your score and I’ll link to you (links will be no-follow, the name you use can include branding words but must start with your real name, and your URL should point to actual content rather than an ad).

When I found out that using my right hand for so many tasks wasn’t typical for a left hander, I thought about what I do with each hand, to see if there was a pattern. There wasn’t a clear pattern, but I noticed some interesting combinations:

Left handers are much more likely to be mixed handed than right handers are. For one thing, lefties are forced to adapt to a right handed world. Lefties also tend to have more symmetrical brains, resulting in natural mixed handedness. There are both pros and cons to mixed handedness, and I’ll write about this later, after I learn more about it.

It’s hard to distinguish between natural and learned mixed handedness. Why do I use scissors with my right hand? Is it because that’s my natural preference, or because my preschool teachers told me to? I don’t remember.

I also don’t remember the first time I used a mouse. Did I use my right hand because it was natural, or because it’s what everyone else was doing?

I’m also not sure how they decide what’s left and right handed for some things. I’m looking at a Washington Post article that shows two examples of left handed former presidents (it was written when mixed lefty Barack Obama was running against strong lefty John McCain). There’s a picture of George H.W. Bush gesturing with his left hand. OK, that’s a clear sign of left handedness. But then there’s a picture of Bill Clinton holding a microphone in his right hand and pointing with his left. That doesn’t exactly scream “Lefty!”

How do we know that pointing is more important than holding a microphone? If he gives a speech knowing that he’s not going to point, does he hold the microphone in his left hand? If you drive with just your left hand on the steering wheel, is that because you’re left handed, or because you’re keeping your dominant right hand free for more important things, like your Big Gulp in the cup holder? If you play golf the “right handed way,” are you really right handed, or could you just want your dominant left arm in front?

Anyway, back to this Handedness test. Go ahead and take it before reading these questions, so I don’t bias you.

- Writing and drawing are listed separately. Does anyone use different hands for them?

- When do you use a knife without a fork? What do you think they’re going for here? I thought about baking a loaf of bread and then slicing it. But might someone use the other hand in a knife fight?

- In the first version I saw, the broom task was listed as “using a broom (upper hand is dominant) or brushing one’s hair.” That seems a bit strange. Does anyone use different hands for these?

- Also, the jar task was listed as “opening a box or a jar lid.” Does anyone use different hands for these?

- It says you’re mixed handed if you do even one task with the other hand. The exception is a left hander using scissors with their right hand, because scissors are often designed for right handers. First, is that true? Do any left handers here use right handed scissors for ergonomic reasons? Second, if scissors aren’t a reliable indicator, then why are they on the test?

I’m curious to hear who uses what hand for what. Leave your score below if you want to, and share any interesting handedness stories you might have. The test gives the breakdown between the different types (left and right, strong and mixed) in the U.S. population. I wonder if there will be a similar breakdown among my readers.

For way, way more mixed-handed goodness, check out my ebooks Ambidextrous (for right-handers) and Ambisinistrous (for left-handers).