Southpaw (Sporting News, 1886)

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:04 PM -0700 8/20/03, Page Stephens wrote:
>
>My guess is that the reason that left handers were singled out for special
>consideration as opposed to north paws is that they are rarer than right
>handers.
>
>Anyone have any better ideas on this subject?
>
This part is certainly plausible, although rarity is only part of the
picture; the other part is that their left-handedness matters (in a
way it doesn't, or doesn't as much, for basketball players, plumbers,
or linguists--or even for outfielders).  Note that even disregarding
the asymmetry between "southpaw" and [the non-existent] "northpaw",
the sobriquet "Lefty" is relatively common, while "Righty" is unheard
of.*  There's a similar asymmetry between "lefty" and "righty" as
common nouns: some pitchers might be referred to as righties in a
context in which lefties are also mentioned ("Team X's staff includes
2 lefties and 8 righties", "A lefty and a righty are up in the
bullpen"), but virtually only in such contexts.  Furthermore, while
the origin of the compass point in "southpaw" may well be determined
by the geography of the ballpark, the fact that such labels as
"southpaw" and "Lefty" are characteristically (although not
exclusively--cf. Lefty O'Doul) reserved for left-handed *pitchers*
rather than position players has to do with the categorizing function
of nouns (cf. Wierzbicka and Bolinger) and the fact that the category
of left-handed pitcher is more significant (and, given
switch-hitters, less malleable) than that of left-handed hitters.

Larry

*Presumably for the same reason that there are a lot of folks called
"Red", but not too many "Blond(e)" or "Brunet(te)" or "Auburn".