Lefties

[Johanna Rubba]

By way of caution, it would be prudent to consider tolerance of
left-handedness in different cultures before jumping to conclusions about
linguists. When my sisters (who are both left-handed, but not linguists;
I'm right-handed and a cognitive linguist [albeit female]) and I visited
England many years ago, we noticed a much larger proportion of left-handed
people around us -- from food servers to shopkeepers. My sisters both
experienced attempts on the part of their early educators (nuns in
Catholic schools, of course) to 'correct' their left-handedness; this
rendered one sister semi-ambidextrous, the other persisted as a leftie;
both hated school. Maybe in England, teachers are more tolerant of
allowing children's handedness to develop naturally. This may also be true
in other countries. Canada, being much influenced by England, may also
eschew anti-sinistrism.

Still, it's a fun discussion.

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Johanna Rubba   Assistant Professor, Linguistics              ~
English Department, California Polytechnic State University   ~
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407                                     ~
Tel. (805)-756-2184  E-mail: jrubba at polymail.calpoly.edu      ~
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