Left-handed children should be taught to write right-to-left in 'mirror writing' and thus escape a lifetime of smearing ink with their hand or contorting their hand into strange shapes. In lessons, the left-handed children would face the back of the class, observing the blackboard/whiteboard in a mirror on the back wall.

Eventually it would become perfectly normal for everyone to carry around a small hand-held mirror (for left-handers to reader right-handers' writing and vice versa).
-- hippo, Oct 05 2009

Or we could just cut off the left hands of the children as they begin to show propensities of left-handedness, and nip this whole thing in the bud.
-- MikeD, Oct 05 2009


Should have been done decades ago. Lefties have one of the most obvious cases for discrimination suits of any group. +
-- cudgel, Oct 05 2009


Writing should be vertical with a vertical axis of symmetry, boustrophedon from the right.
-- nineteenthly, Oct 05 2009


I thought that they would be forced to compose their sentences complete, then start writing with the last letter of the last word.
-- pocmloc, Oct 05 2009


Actually, with tablet devices that do handwriting recognition, this would really work. The lefty could write "backwards" and the computer would flip it around for the sinister impaired to read. Doesn't so much avoid smearing as it allows them to actually see what they are writing instead of the back of their hands. +
-- ckiick, Oct 05 2009


Are kids still writing? Can't they just type?
-- bungston, Oct 05 2009


I had a friend that could write the same sentence on two pieces of paper, forward with the left hand and backward with the right, without even slowing down. Perhaps the most useless skill ever, but it was neat to watch.
-- CaptainClapper, Oct 05 2009


yet another way to make lefties look like inconvenient freaks. sorry, I cant read this lefty stuff, I forgot my mirror, ha ha hah. You aren't hired.
-- WcW, Oct 05 2009


I've heard, don't know if it's true or not, that the percentage of lefties is coming up since people are no longer trained not to be.
-- MechE, Oct 05 2009


The two problems with writing left-handed are smudging ink (as already noted) and not being able to see what you've just written.

Here's my solution: a hand trolley with a camera on the underside and a display screen 'roof'. The user places their hand in the space between the trolley base and roof; the screen makes the user's hand appear transparent.
-- xaviergisz, Oct 05 2009


//The two problems with writing left-handed are smudging ink (as already noted) and not being able to see what you've just written.// [+] I get it now! All my life I could never understand why left-handed people had to turn all the way around in their desk-chair and their handwriting always looked funny and sometimes slanted the other way.
-- Jscotty, Oct 05 2009


Easy solution for me [as a right-handed person who writes left-handed], was to just turn the page 90° anti-clockwise and write from bottom to top. No smudges, can see what I am writing and no contortions of the wrist.
-- Klaatu, Oct 05 2009


I like the idea of writing on the page bottom-to-top. This would force you to start essays or stories at the end and work your way towards the beginning. Teaching this at school would create a generation of left-handed schoolchildren free from the constraints of structuring their thoughts in a traditional linear and sequential way.
-- hippo, Oct 06 2009


//I had a friend that could write the same sentence on two pieces of paper, forward with the left hand and backward with the right, without even slowing down. Perhaps the most useless skill ever, but it was neat to watch.

I wonder which side of the brain is being used there.
-- Cuit_au_Four, Oct 11 2009


// I wonder which side of the brain is being used there //

That's supposed to be a myth but i can't remember the details. There is a crossover but it isn't that simple.
-- nineteenthly, Oct 11 2009



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