LEFT-HANDED LANGUAGE

Left-handers have been linguistically abused for centuries! There are hundreds of (mainly abusive) terms for left-handers.

There are a lot of sayings where "right" is good and "left" is bad e.g., "being in your right mind", "the divine right of kings", it will be all right in the end" as against being "left out", having "two left-feet", "a left-handed compliment" (one that is not really meant!).

Even the word for "left-handed" in many languages is very negative:

LANGUAGE	TRANSLATION FOR LEFT-HANDED	MEANING
Greek	Skaios	Ill-omened, awkward
Italian	Mancini	Crooked, maimed
Spanish	Zurdo	Reverse - No Ser Zurdo = Clever
French	Gauche	Awkward, clumsy
Dutch	Linkshandig	To "have two left hands" means to be clumsy.
German	Links, Linkisch	Awkward
Norwegian	Kjevhendt	Crooked-handed (also advised to us as keivhent, left-hander)
Swedish	vänsterhänd
Australia	Mollie Dooker	Something to do with having fists like a girl
Portuguese	canhoto
Latin	Sinister Dexter	On the left-hand side On the right hand side (dextrous)