comment: >
  
  i dont even write in arabic and im not left handed and i still somehow get ink on my habd
context: This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.
  Remember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not "thoughts had in the shower!"
  (For an explanation of what a "showerthought" is, please read this page.)
  Rule-breaking posts may result in bans. >
  
  I should learn Arabic just to never get ink on me ever again. >
  
  You know what's funny. I had a friend from Dubai who was left-handed, and they forced him to write right-handed to conform.
  The left hand in arabic culture is seen as 'dirty' (which I won't get into), and it's actually seen as rude to shake someone by their left hand or do certain tasks with your left hand >
  
  I totally agree that shaking hands using the left hand is considered rude and somehow lazy (as in the person doesn't care)
  but writing with the left is totally fine (they usually try to teach kids to use the right hand early on but if the kid couldn't in the space of a month or two then they'll stop trying) >
  
  My mom went NUTS when the teachers tried to force me to use my right hand. >
  
  How is your handwriting? Because I started using my left as a kid and my teacher had me use my right and turns out I’m actually right handed haha >
  
  my handwriting is terrible but ever since I got out of college I don't really write by hand too much...last time was to sign a receipt for my rent payment (REALLY wish they would let me pay online) >
  
  Who the hell does that anymore?  I literally live with my tenants (long-time roommates, I bought the house we were renting) and we STILL do online direct deposits. >
  
  Oh gosh, ink on the hand. Spiral notebooks just going to town on the bottom of your hand. Lots of fun lefty things. 
  Also, power tools are 100% made for right handed people lol >
  
  Can openers. Gear shifts. I even have a coffee cup with a beautiful swirly handle that I can’t use because it cuts into my left hand. >
  
  Gear shifts? Move to a literally any left side driving country, or drive a right hand drive, they are usually cooler imports anyway
  Computer mice are one though, I used the computer a lot for stuff when I broke my right hand and learned to be ambidextrous with everything, and could type pretty quickly with just the left (better then I could with both) but with any decent computer mouse it’s near impossible to use with just my left when I’m trying to write in a notebook or something >
  
  Having computer mice be right-handed is one of the few perks of being left-handed (at least when you have two working hands). Being able to use a computer and take hand-written notes or type at the same time is really helpful for office work. >
  
  Ya that’s true I guess, I got the writing fairly neatly but I had to concentrate and if i really concentrated it would be neater then my actual handwriting which was annoying >
  
  Went to a Hebrew school growing up. Hebrew was one of my favorite classes because I could write and not smudge my letters, while the rest of the class had to endure my hell that occurs in regular English writing >
  
  Writing in Hebrew as a righty, I never noticed any inconvenience of "getting dirty "or just being uncomfortable. Never noticed a difference at all. >
  
  Absolutely! 
  My left-handed third grader has lots of other issues, but since the language we write goes right-to-left, no smearing when hand-writing!
  An advantage that won't be so common when she's an adult and types 99% of everything she writes, but useful for elementary school! >
  
  Makes me wonder if they banned people from being left-handed like a lot of the European cultures. >
  
  An Egyptian friend of mine had his left handedness beat out of him by his dad and private school, in the states. He's not even ambidextrous now :( >
  
  I lived in Saudi in 1st-3rd grade. When I learned Arabic was written from right to left I wrote an entire assignment in English like that and my teacher called my parents and said they think I’m dyslexic. >
  
  Fun thing, ancient languages such as Hebrew and Arabic are written and read from right to left because they predate paper, and were written using a hammer and chisel. A right-handed person would hold the hammer in the right hand and chisel in the left, moving right to left as they chisel. >
  
  Shit suddenly made a whole lot more sense >
  
  Unfortunately not. The left hand is the "dirty" hand in Arab societies, and left-handed kids are often forced to write with their right hands. >
  
  This, there's no TP in the desert - that's the ass wiping hand >
  
  It's a worlwide thing, even in catholics countries. In western Europe they used to force lefties to write with their right hand in the 50's >
  
  Lefties who don't write in Arabic: you could always learn to write mirrored, like 
                                     "dnah tfel ym htiw gnitirw m'I ,ih" >
  
  Why did it format like that >
  
  I'd like to suggest that the problem facing left-handed writers isn't the direction in which we write, it's that teachers tell students to tilt the paper to the left when we're learning to write.
  If teachers instead told students to line the paper up with their forearm, then left-handed writers wouldn't smudge their writing any more than right-handed writers do, because we'd both be keeping our hands below the line we're writing on. >
  
  Im usually the first guy to shit on religion, but it doesn't forbid doing anything with your left hand. It's merely مكروه which literally translates to "hated", not forbidden. That basically means you can do it, but if you don't do it you get extra religion points. >
  
  Oh ok. That makes it so much better, thanks for that insight man! >
  
  It was probably also a health thing. If you can get everyone to wipe with the left and shake with the right because god said so, then you’ve just reduced communicable disease. >
  
  Arabic lefty here, and I only know how to write in English. Worst of all worlds. >
  
  Lefties writing in English have a trick — turn the paper fully 90 degrees to the right, then learn to write straight down the page.
  Obviously a learning curve (they really should just teach this technique to leftie kids in the first place), but highly effective >
  
  This is the optimal writing style. Your hand is always ahead of all the writing and has zero chance to touch it
  I would've liked this as the default (top down left to right) but unfortunately, most top-down languages are right to left. >
  
  I did this! Studied Arabic in college! I remember thinking the exact same. >
  
  Forgive my ignorance if i'm wrong, but I remember hearing somewhere that the left hand is viewed as unclean in some arab countries. Like eating with one's left hand, or offering something with the left hand is bad manners and could be taken as an insult. I don't know if that extends to writing also. >
  
  Because the left hand is the hand people wipe their ass with. >
  
  You switched up cause and effect, I think. >
  
  When I first started reading this I immediately thought you were talking about liberals (the other lefties) and got really confused haha >
  
  As a lefty, someone pointed out to me that I write and draw with my hand above the letters. I think I started that at age 5 to avoid dragging my hand through the fresh ink/graphite. >
  
  
  lefties
  right-handed people
  
  Decide which form you're using, righty >
  
  No offense dude, but I get enough shit from western right handers, I don't need shit from religious fundamentalists too.
  I wouldn't call it a lucky minority when I've had older guys straight tell me they used to beat left handed people up >
  
  You get shit from...  right handed people?  What in the flying fuck?  I...  what? >
  
  It doesn't happen much anymore, but it used to be that way. I'm not even lying about the dude that told me about beating people, that was a weird fucking conversation for me >
  
  How old are you?  This is some of the most outlandish shit I've ever read?  Hahaha. >
  
  40, and the people who gave me shit were much older. It's one of the dumbest things I've ever had to deal with, and I'm glad it's basically over. >
  
  Lmao, so only a few years older than me.  I was thinking, like, "maybe if dude's like 75 and went to Catholic school."  This whole thing is just absolutely wild to me.  Hahahaha. >
  
  I get so much hate for this (and maybe it’s too late for some people) but please learn to write with your right hand. It’s hard at first for natural lefties, but it’s absolutely possible. The WORLD is designed for right hand to be dominant. If people are all sitting next to eachother, the elbow goes out to the right so you don’t bump into eachother, 99.9% of languages are designed to write to the right, standard controls on most machinery is right hand dominant, etc. I’m not saying this to be mean to lefties (was one) I’m saying life is so much more convenient if you can use your right hand. The added bonus is you become ambidextrous! >
  
  Great input, you have all numbers to get downvoted to oblivion indeed, but this is the kind of oddly different perspective on very specific topics that I expect from a silly ShowerThoughts post. I'm not a leftie and would probably send to hell whoever tried to change my good hand, but after reading this ambidextrous superpower doesn't sound bad at all. >
  
  I thought that Arabic was written with the hand underneath the line.