Are You a Secret Southpaw?

If you love lefties as I do, you'll find this fascinating. Back in the early 1990s I read Stanley Coren's book The Left-Hander Syndrome. It included a number of tests for the reader to take to find out if he or she is a "secret southpaw." What drew me to the book was not my own left-handedness -- I write with my right hand -- but my observation that I've always been drawn to lefties, both male and female. My first serious childhood crush, Paul McCartney, is left-handed. Joan of Arc, my Catholic confirmation namesake, was left-handed. Robert Redford is left-handed. All of my boyfriends were left-handed (no, I did not prescreen them for this trait), and the hunk I ended up marrying is left-handed. These people rely a lot on their right brains and think in artistic, vibrant ways that I find endlessly appealing. They also tend to suffer more from mental disorders and die earlier, but we won't dwell on that.

Cut to your reason for reading this post: you want to know if you're a "secret southpaw." As you've probably figured out by now, a secret southpaw is someone who is naturally left-handed or a left-leaning ambidextrous but has grown up favoring the right hand (especially for writing) because he or she was taught to use it as a child. In my case, my left arm was broken while I was learning to write, so that may have led to my own right-hand favoritism. In my mother-in-law's case, a 1950s Catholic school education mandated that she use her right hand because her left hand was the devil's tool.

Okey-dokey, here are your secret southpaw tests. Do them BEFORE looking at the interpretations, please.

1) On a sheet of paper, try to write your signature backward in cursive with your left hand.
2) Clasp your hands in front of you; note which thumb you place on top.
3) Grab hold of a broomstick. Which hand is on top?
4) Draw a circle on a piece of paper with your right hand. Did you draw it clockwise or counterclockwise?
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INTERPRETATIONS

1) If you're a secret southpaw, you should have little trouble doing this. Your penmanship will suck, but the name will be legible when you hold the sheet of paper up to the mirror. If you are a true righty, you will find this task excruciating, and the results unreadable in a mirror.
2) The thumb of your dominant hand is usually placed on TOP.
3) The hand on the BOTTOM is usually the dominant hand.
4) If you drew it clockwise, you're probably left-leaning. Full righties tend to draw it counterclockwise.

My results: All four point to leftiness (as if my voting record didn't already reveal that). The fact that I hold a pencil the wrong way while writing -- I brace it against my ring finger instead of my middle finger and grip it in a tense, clawlike fashion -- probably also indicates that I was never truly comfortable writing with my right hand. I do athletic and gymnastic stuff left-foot-first. I also play guitar with my left hand. When my brother was teaching me to play, he was convinced that I was trying to mimic Paul McCartney, but honestly, it just felt better that way. When I told him Jimi Hendrix was left-handed too, he let it go. Because, you see, Jimi was The Man.

For a comprehensive list of famous lefties, go here.

And remember, however you scored, most people are some combination of right- and left-dominant. So if you show any leftward leanings, even if you write with your right hand, I'll still think you're cool.