Just curious
Submitted by Sarah D. Bunting on July 1, 2008 – 9:10 AM112 Comments
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I found it while researching a murder (…this is a sentence I have more frequent use for than most), the true story of a neighborhood legend from my childhood. I grew up in a leafy, …
My dad always told me to wear it on my non-dominant hand. No idea why.
Non-dom here – the logic being, if there is any, that there is a better chance of keeping it from being scratched or damaged in some way if it’s on the hand used less often.
That’s what my mama told me, anyway.
how else am I supposed to tell my left from my right?
I don’t know why, but I started noticing recently that many people I know wear their watches on the dominant hand; the other thing I’ve been noticing is that, although neither my brother nor I is a southpaw, we both have a few “lefty” things we do — the way we write; I wear my watch on the left wrist — and I don’t know why. Our dad is a lefty who does certain things righty, although he says our grandparents didn’t try to re-train him as a northpaw or anything.
I reviewed a book once by David Wolman which has some cool insights into handedness; it’s called “A Left-Hand Turn Around The World,” if anyone’s interested (or needs gift ideas for a hard-to-shop-for lefty).
I don’t wear a watch – i had problems with breaking out from certain metals and then lost my skagen which i didn’t break out from (can’t stand leather bands… and the medal in the face still bothers me…) so, i’ve gotten used to using my cell phone for the time…
but – when i did, non-dom (left) hand…
my mom is a lefty, and both my father (who’s father is a lefty) and I switch hands at random times – mostly eating – probably to accomodate whomever we are sitting next to… (whoever? as she ends the sentence with a preposition anyway…)
Actually, until I developed a sudden eBay-enabled love of silly vintage Swatches last month (wanted, but never got them, as a teenager in the 80’s,) I hadn’t worn a watch in years – that’s what cell phones are for.
I’m right-handed and was taught by my mother to put the watch on the left wrist, as the “proper” thing to do. She’s left-handed and wears it on her left wrist for the same reason. (In the early 90’s, going through a ring-watch phase, I wore those on my left hand, too.)
Ergonomically, traditional watches with stems have them on the right of the watch, so you can adjust the time or wind the watch with your right hand if the watch is on your left arm, but not vice-versa.
However, it’s easier for many people to buckle the watch with the dominant hand than with the non-dominant hand, so lefties might care less about the stem and more about that.
The tyranny of the right. Sigh.
MY mom told ME that the watch is traditionally worn on the non-dom hand because that way you could easily wind it with the dominant hand while you were wearing it. Obviously, that doesn’t really matter anymore, but I’m a righty who wears her watch lefty. At this point, it’s just a habit, I think.
@Sars – I do the same thing – for instance, I iron left-handed, etc. But I am a righty. My grandmother, who in large part raised me, was a lefty they trained to be a righty, and though I do not remember any of this, family lore says she did the same to me. I know my handwriting SUCKED until well after I left school, though.
Back on topic – I wear my watch on my non-dom hand because my mom did. She couldn’t tell her left from her right if she wasn’t wearing it. I don’t have that problem, but I still wear it on my left.
I wear mine on my non-dominant hand…er, sort of. “The hand I don’t write with” is more accurate, since I do a lot of “big movement” things with my right hand, like swing a tennis racket
I tell people I wear it on the right so that 500 years from now the archaeologists will know I was a lefty.
Yeah, non-dom here, too–although I honestly have no idea why. I’ve just always worn bracelets and watches on my left wrist. It feels more natural for some reason. Probably because I don’t do as much with my left hand…?
I got my left hand badly burned when I was very young, and consequently never used it growing up. Trying to fasten a watch onto my right wrist would have been impossible when I was younger, so the decision sort of made itself for me.
While the wearing-on-the-non-dom-hand-because-it’s-less-likely-to-get-damaged theory (and its it’s-not-so-much-in-the-way corollary) is very practical, I assumed people wore their watches on their non-dom had because it was easier to fasten it with the dominant had.
That’s why I do it.
I’m a lefty and I wear my watch on my right wrist. that way it doesn’t get in the way when I am writing. It could get in the way when I write because I have allergic reactions to what ever they treat leather watchbands with, and I don’t like plastic, so I wear metal bands, which don’t give as much when the wrist presses against a surface.
Most leftys do certain things righty out of necessity, it is better now, but most things were not designed for left handed people when I was growing up in the 70s.
My parents never tried to retrain me, but my Russian grandmother HATED the fact that I was a lefty. She called me her “left-handed indian” (no idea where the indian came from), and tried to get me to use a fork with my right hand until the day she died, when I was 29.
I wear mine on my left wrist (I’m right handed) but I wear mine with the face of the watch on the inside of my writst. I started doing that about 15 years ago, but I can’t remember why.
I have it on myleft hand so that I can do things with my dominant hand like take notes and still check my watch on my left wrist to see how much longer I have to sit in the interminable meeting that is over airconditioned to the point where I will have frostbite in July.
Non-dominant hand, my left.
I’m a righty, so if I wore it on the right it would get in the way when writing.
I’ve never really thought about it, but wouldn’t you be more likely to be holding something in your dominant hand so it’s more convenient, much of the time, to look at your non-dom wrist?
I used to wear my watch on my dominant wrist, but then I was told I was doing it wrong so I switched. I was never given an explanation as to why you are supposed to wear it on the non-dominant wrist, though. So maybe it’s a rule that people have stopped following as much, or maybe it’s nonsense.
People still wear wristwatches? Huh.
I wear my watch on my left hand (non-dominant) because it gets in the way on the right. I also wear all jewelry on my left hand. I think my right one is getting a bit jealous.
I’m a lefty and I wear my watch on my left wrist, really only because my parents and my older brother all wear theirs on their left wrist so thats’ what I followed when I was little. For a long time I didn’t know they did that because they were rightys and it’s considered more appropriate to wear it on your non-dominant hand. But by then it was too late and I was used to the watch being on the left.
That’s pretty much the same reason why I use scissors and knives and do some other things righty, because my parents didn’t know any other way to teach me. Consequently I don’t feel the need to complain that much about the world being built for rightys.
I always thought the logic behind wearing it on your non-dominant hand was that it wouldn’t drag across the paper when you write stuff. But who wears watches or writes stuff by hand anymore anyway? I’m hardly ever further than 2 feet from my cell phone or a clock on a computer, so I stopped wearing a watch years ago.
Funny this should come up – a friend asked me the other day why I wear my watch on my right wrist, since I am also right-handed. It seemed wrong to him, and actually I have had several people assume I am a southpaw because of this. As a kid, I wore my watch on my left wrist until I was about fourteen, when I got curious about how long it would take me to stop looking left if I moved my watch to the right. It took about 3 days, as I recall. I just never moved it back!
I wear mine on my non-dominant (left) hand bc when I was little and learning how to put a watch on, it was easier to use my dominant (right) hand to do it.
Now, the next question is: where is the face of your watch- on top of your wrist, facing up alongside the back of your hand, or on the inside of your wrist, facing down next to your palm? My Grandpa always wore his watch with the face down, so does my Dad, and so do I.
I technically wear it on my dominant hand. I am left handed, but was forced to switch to writing with my right hand in school ( in the freaking eighties) I wear my watch on my left so it doesn’t bug me writing but I am left handed in most other things (sports, working with tools, etc).
I don’t understand the logic of digging into my bag to get out my cell and check the time, when I could strap a fashion accessory to my wrist and check that in 0.2 seconds.
I still write stuff by hand, too. It’s often faster and I’m not near my computer every minute (the Blackberry is a nice idea in theory, but in practice I used it for literally nothing except approving TN comments and playing Brick Breaker, and I was happy to be rid of it when my contract ended).
I’m not a deliberate Luddite; new technology is cool. But sometimes old technology works better for me. It’s like the Kindle…you can’t dog-ear a Kindle page, so that’s out.
As for face-up vs. face-down, usually I wear it with the face on the top of my wrist, unless I’m in a situation in which I will be checking the time constantly, but need to do so surreptitiously (i.e. boring meetings). Then I turn it face in.
Haven’t worn a watch in years, but when I did, I wore it on my left wrist. I’m a lefty, but I do everything pretty much except write and eat with my right hand because both of my parents are right-handed so when I wanted to learn sports and stuff they taught me the way they knew to do it. They didn’t care that I was left handed; they just only knew how to throw a ball right-handed so that’s how I learned. I suspect the same may be true of wearing a watch. I’m a fan of jewelry these days and when I wear bracelets, I always wear them on the left hand where I used to have my watch.
@ Heather, I wear it on the top (anterior?) of my wrist, but my mom wears hers on the bottom (interior?) of her wrist. At one point she told me something about wearing it on the inside so that you don’t brush up against things and damage the watch, or other surface, or catch it on things. (There was something about fighter pilots wearing it that way so that they didn’t scratch the watch against the glass of the cockpit.)
She’s a nurse, and said that when she was watching the time when taking someone’s pulse, it was easier to turn her wrist in to watch the second hand.
My watch ends up face-down quite often (I like loose-fitting bands and eventually the weight redistributes itself), and every time I have to look at the inside of my wrist to check the time, I think of Lisa Bonet/Denise Huxtable, who wore her watch like that in a TV special I saw at an impressionable age. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. The fact that Big Bird was also in this special may have had something to do with it.
Way back when I wore a wristwatch, it was on my non-dominant left hand. Then one year for my birthday my mom gave me a watch on a chain to wear as a necklace, and I haven’t gotten another watch since. I don’t have to worry about scratching it on anything, and it’s really handy if you want to surreptitiously check the time – it just looks like you’re fiddling with a necklace.
I’m a righty who has always worn her watch on the left, though I haven’t worn one for the last few months since the battery died and I haven’t gotten around to replacing it. But I do keep a gold bracelet on my right wrist, and never thought of switching it to the other wrist until now.
@ Sars, I live my life by the Filofax calendar in my purse. Writing things on paper just makes more sense in my head.
I don’t wear a watch these days – I used to check it way too much and get stressed all the time (time passing too quickly, too slowly, something not happening exactly when it should…). On the rare occasions that I actually do need to know the time, eg, if I’m meeting someone, I usually have my phone to hand anyway in case they call or message.
But when I did wear a watch, I used to wear it on my dominant hand (right), face down, which is the perfect way to constantly clang and scratch it against your desk/laptop/everything. The reason for the watch-damaging positioning? Christian Slater, my main celebrity crush when I was a teenage (and a lefty), wore his watch like that on some of the posters I had on my bedroom walls. I should really bill him for all the watches I’ve broken over the years. :)
I wear mine on my left wrist (I’m a righty) mainly because I have freakishly small wrists and my watch is always a skootch too big. If I had it on my right wrist, it would bug the eff out of me.
My son is the most dominant lefty his pediatrician has ever seen. We had to practically hire people to teach him how to tie his shoes, and his kindergarten teacher couldn’t teach him how to write — she had to get the lefty librarian to come in and work with him.
I don’t wear a watch. I have enough clocks everywhere I go that having one strapped to my body just seems excessive. I mean, if I really need to know the time, I can check my cell phone, or the clock in my car, or the clock on my computer, or the clock on the bank, or etc, etc. Not wearing a watch prevents the constant watch-checking that a lot of people unconsciously do, and which I find really annoying (and I’m sure I’d do it myself).
I do still pointedly look at my wrist if I am urging my husband to HURRY THE EFF UP, and when I do that I look at my left wrist (I’m right-handed). I believe my husband, who is a fairly ambidextrous lefty (writes lefty, does almost everything else righty), wore his on his left hand, though (I have since converted him to my non-watch-wearing ways). Other lefties I have known wore theirs on their right (non-dom hand).
When I used to wear a watch I wore it on my dominant (right) side. I think I mostly wore it that way because it was harder to fiddle with it if I had to use my non-dominant hand to get it off.
When I did wear a watch, I wore it on my left wrist (I write with my right hand. ~10 broken watches later, I gave up. For a while, before the advent of cell phones, I used to just sneak peeks at the watches of others, or find public clocks.
Nowadays, I just keep my cell in a part of my bag where I can grab it easily. I have a strap on it as well to make the grabbing even more hassle-free.
“the way we write”
Huh? I write in a lefty fashion?
Like Sheli, I used to wear my watch on my dominant (right) wrist, until I was informed that I was wearing it on the wrong wrist. I’ve been wearing it on the left wrist ever since, except for those occasions when I decide to wear my watch-on-a-chain instead, and I wear that around my neck.
To Bkwrm: Thank god, after 27 years I finally learn that I’m not alone in being a lefty who pretty much only uses the left hand for writing and eating. I’m a bit different than you in that when I wear a watch I wear it on my non-dom hand. But for sports, etc., it’s always been my right hand (pitching and batting in baseball, dribbling a basketball, etc.) The thing I found interesting about your comment is that it never occurred to me, even though it’s so obvious, that perhaps when it comes to sports or cutting with scissors or other sorts of things, that my right hand becomes dominant because that’s how I was taught (my parents are right-handed). I’ve spent years having people be perplexed by the fact that I’m a lefty, but only for certain things, and have never been able to explain to anyone why that might be.
Here’s a general question that is sort of on topic but not quite – are there any librarians on the comment board? I’m a librarian and have noticed a pattern, as have a lot of my colleagues, that a high proportion of librarians are lefties. Has anyone else familiar with the inner workings of the, er, “library world” noticed this trend? This might delve more into the whole left-brain vs. right-brain thing. But I’d be curious to see if anyone has any feedback as I’m also tired of answering to the following comment from people – “Oohhhh, you’re a librarian *and* a “lefty”? It seems like a lot of you library people are lefties.” Again, not on topic but kind of the same genre of question as “wrist watch – right wrist or left wrist?”
I am a lefty and wear my watch on my left hand. I am the only lefty in my immediate family, so I have a feeling that I just started wearing it on the left because that was what everyone else in my family did. Just another way a lefty had to conform to the righty world!! :D
I’m a librarian, but I’m a rightie and so are both my colleagues.
I wear my watch on my non-dom hand (left), and I also carry my purse on my non-dom shoulder (left). My twin sister, though, who is also right-handed, does the opposite, wearing her watch on the right and carrying her purse on the right. My argument for left on both those things is that I’m more likely to be DOING something with my right hand, which means it’ll be harder to turn my right wrist to see my watch and more likely for my purse to come careening down my shoulder and crashing into my right hand as I move it around. Put everything on the left and they’re easier to access and less likely to get in my way.
Mr. S: Your handwriting looks like Dad’s. Dad’s, I always assumed, looks the way it does because he holds his hand a certain way so as not to smear the writing as he’s going across the page/check/whatever (you know how he likes those smudgy pens), and you have kind of the same letter formations even though you’re a righty.
In my case it’s more of a pen-grip thing, and also I way preferred lefty desks back in school.
I’m a lefty who wears a watch on my right (non-dominant) wrist. Wearing thick, plastic 1980s bangles in high school taught me to use my non-dominant hand, so that I didn’t smash up my wrist every time I tried to write something.
I too wear my watch on the inside of my wrist (non-dom hand) and the reason? Sandra Bullock does it in Speed and I was OBSESSED with that movie in 8th grade.
Mr. Stupidhead! Thank you for asking your sister the exact question I had on my mind. Here I am, wondering: If writing left-handedly doesn’t make you a lefty, what does?
“the way we write” could have meant any number of things, even in context. And so it did.
You dog-ear pages? For shame! (Sorry, I’m a huge book nazi.)
I am a righty and wear my watch on my right hand. I think I have done it ever since grade school. My mom says that I started doing it so that I could just glance down at my wrist while I was writing to see what time it was, instead of looking over at my other arm. I guess I’ve just been lazy since childhood.
The comments on this have been quite interesting. I’ve never given it much thought but always wore it on my left wrist (non dominant hand) because I was told that was the way it was done. I am also interested in the talk of leftys being “re-trained” as righties. A child of public education in the late eighties/early nineties, I have several lefty friends from elementary school, so I assume they escaped unscathed. Was the “retraining” a common practice? Also, my dad writes with his right hand but plays all sports (batting, throwing, golfing etc) left handed.
I don’t wear watches anymore, but when I did, I wore the watch on my right (non-dominant) hand. This way, when I was taking evil standardized tests, I could glance at my watch to see how much time I had left.
My left hand was always smearing my South-Paw Scratch- I never learned to bend my hand so it wouldn’t. I hold the pencil/pen like a right-handed person does- except with my left hand (my teachers HATED that I did). Computers saved my life, and I still think better when I type instead of writing. But I use my mouse and throw with my right hand. Go figure.
I used to wear it on my non-dominant hand, but since I got a forearm tattoo I don’t want to cover, I wear it on the dominant one.
It *still* feels weird.