Saying “I know which is my left hand because I write with it!” is is not an expected justification for knowing the left from the right hand. More typically one hears “I know my right hand because I write with it!” And as such, the left / write justifcation needed exploring.

Some facts: the left handed writer:

• was the eldest daughter of a Catholic family of five siblings• went to a school run by nuns
• was taught to write (with her dominant left hand) before she started schooling by her grandmother.
• the family were friendly with the nuns who ran the school.
• as a teenager she considered herself to be a bad speller.
• she took a job as a secretary and ‘suddenly’ became a good speller.

The explanation thus made sense.

• because the family knew the nuns, when she started schooling, writing with her left hand, she wasn’t considered to    be a little devil, and was allowed to continue writing with her left hand; normally considered to be the sinister hand..
• I think the difficulty with spelling must have been tied up with her justification – writing with the left.
• becoming a good speller: I think the mechanism for the ‘flip’ is analagous to the ‘flip’ the brain can make when it         suddenly reverts images created by wearing inverting prisms.

What do you think?