Left-handed people make up about 10% of the population. In a world dominated by right-handed people, it sometimes feels unfair for the left-hand dominant ones that many items are made to be operated by the right hand.
However, being a lefty is not such a bad thing. In fact, left-handed people come with some advantages that right-handed people can only dream about.
Here are 11 little known facts about left-handed people that will show you just how well these people can do!
- Left-handed people can adjust more easily to seeing underwater
While it’s not quite clear why this is so, scientists think it has to do with the brain. Left-handed people have different parts of the brain dominant, so it perhaps has something to do with that.
- Osama bin Laden, Jack the Ripper and The Boston Strangler were all left-handed
Interestingly, the Latin word for ‘left’ is ‘sinister’. Do lefties hide something others don’t know about?
- Left-handed people are more likely to suffer from disruptive sleep disorders
In fact, scientists have linked the Periodic Limb Movement Disorder (PLMD) to left-handedness.
- There are about 3400 words that can be typed by using only the left hand, compared to 450 words typed by using only the right hand
The longest words that can be typed using solely the left hand are dresses, sweater, decades, and tesserae. This makes lefties quite the fast typers.
- Left-handed people suffer from worse asthma and allergies than the right-handed people
Left-handed people might experience more asthma attacks in their childhood, compared to right-handed people.
- A whopping number of 30 million Americans are left handed
Worldwide, it has been estimated that lefties take up around 10% of the population, or in other words – 700 million people are left handed.
- Left-handed people tend to be better at architecture
Having their right brain dominant, they are better at visualizing and at 3D perception. That’s why there are more left-handed architects than right-handed ones.
- Lefties spend less time in line
Being in a right-hand dominant society, many people choose the right line when standing in one. Lefties, however, tend to choose the left line.
- 4 out of 7 recent U.S. presidents are left handed
The left-handed U.S. presidents are as follows: James A. Garfield, Herbert Hoover, Harry S. Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama.
- The English word ‘left’ comes from the Old English ‘lyft’, which means weak, idle, or useless.
The French word for ‘left’, ‘gauche’, also means awkward or clumsy.
- Left-handed men earn more money after college than right-handed men
Statistics have shown that left-handed men who have graduated from college earn 13% more than their right-handed counterparts. However, statistics show that left-handed women earn 5% less than right-handed women.
Are you one of those 10%? Do you know a leftie?
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A professional writer with over a decade of incessant writing skills. Her topics of interest and expertise range from health, nutrition and psychology.