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  Modern American Presidents' sinister secret!Nov 06, 2013 9:49 PM PST | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:Selenis, as this page perhaps reminds us, is right-handed. The other day I got to wondering what percentage of people were left-handed, because I wasn't sure I remembered it right, but looking it up on Wikipedia I found that I'd remembered ri--uh, correctly: about 10% of people are left-handed (okay actually 10% of men--including me, and 12% of women).
 
As often happens, Wikipedia had further information on the subject that makes for some absorbing reading. For instance, for some reason, left-handedness is way way waaaay more prevalent, at least recently, in American Presidents than in the general population:

Of the seven most recent U.S. Presidents, four, including Barack Obama, have been left-handed, while a fifth is said to have been ambidextrous: Ronald Reagan, who was left-handed by birth, became president after he defeated left-handed candidate George H. W. Bush in the Republican primary election. Four years earlier, Reagan had lost the Republican presidential primary to incumbent left-handed President Gerald Ford. George H. W. Bush succeeded Reagan and later ran for re-election against left-handers Bill Clinton and Ross Perot. Clinton's second term opponents included Perot and Bob Dole, who had become left-handed when his right arm was paralyzed in combat 50 years earlier. Left-handed then-Senator Obama defeated left-handed Senator John McCain in his race for the presidency. Including the 2012 campaign, the last time the United States Presidential Election featured no left-handed candidate from a major political party was 1972.

Weird! Presidential handedness records are only considered reliable after the early part of the 20th century, since "during the 18th and 19th centuries left-handedness was considered a disability and teachers would make efforts to suppress it in their students." This stigma against left-handedness even goes as deep as its etymology: "in many European languages, including English, the word for the direction 'right' also means 'correct' or 'proper.' Throughout history, being left-handed was considered negative. The Latin word sinistra meant 'left' as well as 'unlucky' and this double meaning survives in European derivatives of Latin, and in the English word 'sinister.'"
 
The particularly fascinating word I learned from all this was "ambisinistrous," which (along with "ambilevous") means that you're equally bad with both hands. : o I guess this is mostly the result of an accident or something; Dole, for instance, might have been said to have been a shade ambisinister after his preferred right arm was wounded, before he taught himself to use his left hand instead.
 
 
 
 
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