F. J.
One of the Regulars
- Messages
- 221
- Location
- The Magnolia State
The (now mostly-obsolete) Reason? Wet Ink
The reason might not seem obvious these days with most people writing with ballpoint pens that dry instantly, but was quite apparent in years past when people wrote with dip or fountain pens. There is a reason they used to make blotters and blotting paper and, prior to that, pounce and pounce-pots: real ink can take a while to dry.
In English, we read and write from left to right. When writing right-handed, the pen follows the hand. When writing left-handed, the hand follows the pen, which results in smudging and smearing the still-wet ink that you just wrote, never-mind having a black (or blue) hand. An easy way to prevent this is to simply hold your hand up off the paper, which can be a bit awkward and something that right-handed people don't have to do.
The moment I realized adults were full of it was when as a kid, I took to writing left handed. The teachers and my Mom ALL said I needed to be right handed. "Why?" I asked. It'd just be easier, they said. "How so?" I asked. Blank stares was all i ever got back. To this day, I have never gotten a fair answer to that and I now know they were just old school people who had some kind of problem with lefties and couldn't really say why.
Many famous artists were lefties and I now realize that I'm very right-brained, that's the most likely reason why i took to being left handed. That said, it's only with fine motor skills, I do most other stuff right handed (like shooting).
The reason might not seem obvious these days with most people writing with ballpoint pens that dry instantly, but was quite apparent in years past when people wrote with dip or fountain pens. There is a reason they used to make blotters and blotting paper and, prior to that, pounce and pounce-pots: real ink can take a while to dry.
In English, we read and write from left to right. When writing right-handed, the pen follows the hand. When writing left-handed, the hand follows the pen, which results in smudging and smearing the still-wet ink that you just wrote, never-mind having a black (or blue) hand. An easy way to prevent this is to simply hold your hand up off the paper, which can be a bit awkward and something that right-handed people don't have to do.