Argumentative Essay On Life For Lefties

Life For Lefties As I sit down and begin to write this essay, my mind wanders back to Thanksgiving, where apologies took up just as much of the conversation as college did. Apologies for slowing down the potato peeling process, for constantly bumping elbows at the dinner table, for almost spilling the gravy as I attempted to drizzle it over my turkey, I’m most thankful for making it through the festivities without causing any injuries to either myself or my fellow family members. Who would have thought that a left-handed preference could serve as the source of such ample apologizing and suffering, since 730,000,000 people share the same characteristic? However, 730,000,000 makes up only ten percent of the world’s population, a minority

ONE DAY. If you can manage to do only half of everything left-handed for that day, you MIGHT BEGIN to understand the seemingly small ‘inconveniences’ suffered by the left-handed on a daily basis” (Dossey 12). Many people may glance at this challenge and find it pointless, highlighting exactly the point Weems makes: that the majority of people don’t realize the struggles of living in a world where people simply assume right-handedness. The stamp of left-handedness appears to also bring the stamp of unworthiness in regards to ease of living, since left-handed people have no trouble finding enemies in the most commonplace of activities. Cooking, for instance, requires lefties to run the risk of injuring themselves meals after meal. Appliance such as can openers, peelers, corkscrews, and soup ladles all force lefties to manipulate their hands in a way where failure prevails more often than success. If only manufacturers took the time to construct items suitable for lefties, or at least appliances equally suitable for both hand preferences, left-handed people would not have to spend just as much time in the kitchen worrying as they do cooking. However, in a world in which profit trumps quality, lefties continue to receive the short end of the stick, overlooked and under appreciated for the skills they could bring

From elementary school to college, left-handed students struggle to adjust and adapt “in an environment designed for the right-handed” (Wenze 26). Even though the extreme treatment of teachers forcing students to write with their right hand no longer occurs, enemies still remain, only in the inanimate form. How often does one see left-handed scissors in an elementary school classroom or a left-sided desk in a college lecture hall? For those who never found it necessary to scrutinize the classroom for such items, very rarely. This forces left-handed students to contort their fingers and bodies in ways not unlike those of an acrobat, however, in this case, the grounds for contortion are not ones of entertainment. From the very beginning of time, language has served as the most direct way of communicating thoughts and feelings. However, while some people have coined words and phrases that have maintained their positive denotations and connotations over time, etymology has never favored the word “left”. Across the globe, translations of “left” have taken to mean anything and everything negative. In Latin and French, for instance, “left” serves as ground zero for the words sinister and awkward while “right” equates with king and clever, respectively. Such translations have not only evolved into negative phrases involving the word “left” such