Left handed people were thought to be evil, we get our word sinister from it and many tools are made to favor right handed people. I do not agree with this by any means and it is certainly changing for the better now.
Is sinister unfair to the left-handed?
Sinister has an etymology that might seem a bit biased against the left-handed portion of the population, as this word, which has had naught but disagreeable meanings for over five hundred years now, comes from a Latin word of the same spelling that means “on the left side.” We find this root in other English words, such as the adjective
sinistral (“left-handed”) and the adverb
sinistrad (“toward the left side”). To make things even more unfair, the Latin word
dexter (“on the right side”) has given rise to English words with largely positive meanings, such as
dexterity and
ambidextrous.
Bias against left-handed people is bias or design that is usually unfavorable against people who are
left-handed. Part of this is due to design in the world which is often right-hand biased. Handwriting is one of the biggest sources of actual disadvantage for left-handed people, other than for those forced to work with certain machinery. About 90 percent of the world's population is right-handed,
[1] so many common articles are designed for efficient use by right-handed people, and may be inconvenient, painful, or even dangerous for left-handed people to use. These may include school desks, kitchen implements, and tools ranging from simple
scissors to hazardous machinery such as
power saws.
[2]
Beyond being inherently disadvantaged by a right-handed bias in the design of tools, left-handed people have been subjected to deliberate discrimination and discouragement. In certain societies, they may be considered unlucky or even malicious by the right-handed majority. Many languages still contain references to left-handedness to convey awkwardness, dishonesty, stupidity, or other undesirable qualities. In many societies, left-handed people were historically (and in some cases still are) forced as children to use their right hands for tasks which they would naturally perform with the left, such as eating or writing.
[3] In the late 20th century, left-handedness became less stigmatized, and in many countries, particularly the Western world, left-handed children were no longer forced to switch to their right hand.
