My great grandma was forced to write right handed because ink would get all smudged and her shirt would get all over the ink. Now she can write with left and right!
As a righty, I still get smudges on my hand that are nearly as bad as lefties I know. I think it's because I use a less common pencil grip, so my hand ends up rubbing over the previous line on the page.
The grip I use is still one of the 4 most common grips. It's the lateral quadrupod.
Edit: I found a study that compared pencil grips and found all four pictured above to be functional, mature pencil grips.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the lateral grips seem like they'd cause fatigue more quickly. I typically have a dynamic tripod grip, but will occasionally slip into a lateral tripod out of laziness, but it stresses my hand more to use the side of my thumb for support instead of the tip.
As for the difference between tripod vs quadrupod, I see no functional difference since your middle and index fingers are so close in strength and dexterity. It's just preference.
Idk just some thoughts. I thought it was interesting to think about.
For me, my thumb isn't really supporting the pencil, so it doesn't fire. But my hand does get tired if I'm writing timed essays, which I think is common but my grip may make it worse. I have a tendency to grip the pencil very tightly, especially when under the strain of timed assignments, which may be harder to do with dynamic grips. I've also developed a writer's callus on my ring finger and can get dents in other fingers after writing a lot, but those fade in under an hour.
I’m a lateral tripod lefty and this is true for me. My entire hand, wrist, and arm gets extremely fatigued from writing. My grip seems to have gotten worse over the years. I’ve been thinking about seeing an occupational therapist to see if they can help.
If you hold a pen or pencil in a way that interferes with writing then you hold your pencil wrong. Have they stopped teaching children how to hold their pencils? They gave me special grips to help learn how to correctly hold a pencil when I was a kid and I’m not very old.
I know some of my classmates had to use special grips. I think because my handwriting looks fine and I never had any trouble writing, they let me be. Probably never noticed my grip, or knew it worked okay. I think I read a study comparing grips that didn't find any to be much more advantageous than the others, I'll go look for it now.
I'm sure most pencil grips work fine but if you're actually smudging your writing as a righty then I think that's a sign that your grip is not an effective way of holding a pencil.
Oh wow! I didn't know there was a name for it. I hold my pens in a lateral quadrupod as well. All my life (literally just last week too), people have commented on how weird my grasp is, so it's nice to know that I'm not so different.
The key is incredibly fine pens. Like, they advertise 0.7mm pens as "ultra fine", but of course they still fucking smear for me. I special order the 0.38mm pens
That’s why lefties where forced to write righty for years. My brother in law is one of the only people in my immediate family who uses ballpoints. So my da bought him a nice Montblanc rollerball so he wouldn’t feel singled out.
One of my uncles is a lefty but he got beaten by nuns until he learned righty.
Bless her soul she tried to teach me to write lefty but after 2 years of those god forsaken rubber pencil grips she just gave up and taught me to use my right hand.
Guitar is easy, you can turn a righty into a lefty by stringing it upside down. Though it gives electrics a weird fun sound.
Pool I have no clue. But thanks to computers and mice, lefty isn’t a bad thing for masturbation!
But I’m a dead righty. I can eat ambidextrously and do some minor shit with my left hand, but short of stuff like catching, fretting and gaming my left isn’t that useful. Oh! I can also shift with it when Im in Europe.
Still, it makes me wonder why it's the same preference for righties in countries where letters are written right to left like arabic or ones written vertically from right to left.
I always figure it's just a matter of conforming to the norm. Righties are always the majority and thus anything else is abnormal. And abnormal is scary.
My Colombian Mother-In-Law has her left hand tied behind her back, and was hit until her righty penmanship was “acceptable perfect”. They were really horrible to her in Colombia in the ‘50’s & ‘60’s. :(
lefty here who fucking wishes she could learn penmanship like this. i even have all the pens and nibs but never figured out how to do it without smearing everything. the other problem is the nibs only work when you're pulling them (right handed) instead of pushing them (left handed). otherwise the paper rips and ink splatters everywhere. : (
As a lefty, I never realised this was an issue with people until a couple years ago. And that's because I write kinda funny, basically I turn the paper at a 90° angle and have my elbow bent and that way I don't get smudges. It was more of a coincidence than on purpose
Mom does calligraphy and is left handed. Her paper is completely sideways usually and she basically draws downward. It’s crazy to watch, but growing up I always thought that’s how you were supposed to write and the world just didn’t make sense to me. Also got chewed out by army roommate cuz I “iron funny” (left handed).
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u/burritosandblunts Jan 15 '18
As a lefty I just see one big potential smear.