I don’t mean Ambidextrous!
Yesterday I tried cutting a vegetable with the knife in my non-dominant hand and it was a weird and uncomfortable thing. I wonder if there are people who have that distinct discomfort of using your “bad” hand, but on both hands?
I don’t think it would fall under ambidexterity, because that kinda implies someone is comfortable with either hand, but could someone be uncomfortable with both?
There’s a word for it.
Ambisinister
https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-day/ambisinister-2021-08-13/
Looking at the origin:
ambi, Greek: both;
anti, Greek: against, opposed;
dexter, Latin: right, skilful, clever;
sinister, Latin: left, wrong, evil;
So sinister is already anti-dexter, the ambi just emphasises that this not-skilfulness applies to both hands. In German, calling somebody having “two left hands” means that they aren’t skilful at all concerning handcrafting.
No, ambidexterity is comfort with both hands. Ambisinestrousness is discomfort with both hands.
Interesting. The word for good with both is related to dextral or right-handed, and the word for bad with both comes from sinister or left-handed.
Are you asking whether there are clumsy people, and people who feel clumsy? Yes, yes there are.
I mean, depending on the task, I have felt this. There are sometimes things I can’t figure out which hand to use because both feel wrong. Not often. Guitar feels like that for me.
I also read that as we get older, we become less “handed” and it’s not because we become ambidextrous just less dextrous overall, the dominant hand loses dexterity.
I’m left handed, and the topic has come up with right handed people over the course of my life. Living in a world largely built for right handed people forces you to adopt some right handed habits. Wii Sports let you choose your handedness per activity which is helpful to a lot of us southpaws; we legitimately do some things the “right handed” way.
Guitar for example; when I started taking guitar lessons when I was 12, they handed me a normal guitar off the rack with the neck in my left hand and it was instantly comfortable. After a few lessons it came out that I am left handed and “Oh we have a left-handed guitar if you want to try it. Here.” and it felt wrong. Meanwhile I would say just over half, say 54% of the right-handed people I’ve handed a guitar to went “oh no this isn’t right” and wanted to play it the other way. So I’m convinced “normal” guitars are in fact left-handed.
Right handed people often report being strongly right handed and that doing things with their left hand is very difficult. “My right hand is a hand, my left hand is a clamp.” I’ve heard very few left handed people report the same.
A version of what you are saying is called cross dominance. Where a person is “handed” but users different hands for different things. For example, I write right handed but play sports and shoot left handed. I use left handed scissors but right handed hammer, screwdriver. All of the things feel awkward with the wrong hand but that hand changes with the task.
right handed hammer, screwdriver.
A what now?
I’ve been a carpenter for over thirty years, but I’ve never heard of or seen such a thing, and I can’t even imagine what one would look like. Hammers and screwdrivers are (generally) bilaterally symmetrical.
right handed hammer, screwdriver
Sounds like shit I’ve sent the new apprentice to go looking for when I need a break
They are saying they personally use their right hand for the hammer and screwdriver, but used the handedness of the scissors instead of just saying their left hand.
Then, they should learn to write more clearly because that arrangement of words does not convey that message.
It’s so hard to find left-handed hammers that I’m sure you just felt forced to do it the other way.
Before I switched hands I’d just use the right handed one backwards if I couldn’t find a lefty.
How hard is it to hammer in nails with the claw? I always assumed it would be difficult, but seemed too dangerous to try.
Related to this, but also not really, is how I feel as a right handed person playing guitar.
I mean, sure, the right hand is doing some picking, but the left hand is up there doing all the clever stuff and the right hand has no idea how it manages to do any of it.
I play strings right handed. It seemed weird to me too that the off hand is doing the easy work. Playing left feels wrong like batting right does though. I guess the rhythm is easier to control with the dominant hand and hitting the wrong note/chord doesn’t matter as much when you’re in time?
This makes me wonder if drummers have a dominant hand. Except Rick Allen of course.
For me, it’s the other way around: I write with my left hand, but I’m right-handed or right-footed when I do sports and I also use tools like a hammer with my right hand.
Jessica Cox is a certified scuba diver, a light sport pilot, and I think it is safe to say she is without handedness.
