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<P>Being a the only left-handed person in my family, I occasionally get calenders and such with quotes on them from famous left-handers or about being left-handed. Most of them describe the left side of anything as being sinister or wierd. For example is this quote from Aristotle, "That is the right side, from whence the motion of the body beginneth, the active or moving side; but that is the sinister which is the weaker or more quiescent part." Could left field be the weaker part of the field?<BR><BR></P></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>>From: Gerald Cohen <GCOHEN@UMR.EDU>
<DIV></DIV>>Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
<DIV></DIV>>To: ADS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
<DIV></DIV>>Subject: "out of left field" (Why "left"?)
<DIV></DIV>>Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 14:54:53 -0600
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>> I have received the following query:
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>>Can you tell me how the expression "out of left field' came into
<DIV></DIV>>>existence and has the meaning it has? It is obviously of baseball
<DIV></DIV>>>origin, but why not out of right field or out of center or
<DIV></DIV>>>something
<DIV></DIV>>>else? Why is out of left field associated with the unusual or the
<DIV></DIV>>>bizarre or the weird or the unexpected?
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>> _The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary_ (by Paul Dickson; NY:
<DIV></DIV>>Harcourt, 1999)
<DIV></DIV>>says: "_left field_...Extended use:1. Things that are unusual,
<DIV></DIV>>unexpected, or irrational are deemed to have come out, or from, left
<DIV></DIV>>field. 'You'd think things are starting to look like they've got a
<DIV></DIV>>pattern, and all of a sudden there's something that comes...from
<DIV></DIV>>left
<DIV></DIV>>field' (An investigator working on efforts to determine the cause
<DIV></DIV>>of
<DIV></DIV>>the explosion of TWA Flight 800, quoted in _Baltimore Sun_, Aug. 17,
<DIV></DIV>>1996).
<DIV></DIV>>2. The political left.'Canadian businessmen last week were playing
<DIV></DIV>>host to two more trade missions out of far left field. In Canada
<DIV></DIV>>searching for business were one team of sales-minded Russians and
<DIV></DIV>>another of inscrutable Hong Kong traders acting as agents for their
<DIV></DIV>>neighbors the Communist Chinese." (_Time_ magazine, Jan. 20, 1961).
<DIV></DIV>> 3. A bad seat in a restaurant or arena. 1st use, 1948. 'Unless a
<DIV></DIV>>name is in the register, he is given a seat in left field" (Jack
<DIV></DIV>>Lait
<DIV></DIV>>& lee Mortimer, _New York Confidential_)."
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>> In other words, Dickson has nothing conclusive. Would anyone
<DIV></DIV>>have
<DIV></DIV>>any ideas?
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>---Gerald Cohen
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