Light switches wired wrongly

[ebee]

I have just been looking around the room and have just concluded that I am right eyed (unless I am now feeling biased by what`s just been said).

I bet it will annoy me now just like that tale someone told me years back about a clock face and wrong numbers on it

 

[JohnW2]

You are right that is interesting about eyes, i had no idea. so the dominant eye looks at the target central and the other one triangulates for depth and distance etc so is possibly cleverer in reality I suppose. or a least the brain running it and computing it is so.
Pretty clever stuff anyway .

Yes, it's very clever, as is everything to do with the brain.

However, I can't really think of why it is that things have evolved in that way. I suppose that 'triangulation is fractionally easier with a s right-angled triangle than an isosceles one, but one (or one's brain) doesn't need to know much about trigonometry to be able to deal with the latter- and, in any event, if one (or one's brain) really wants to, it can split the isosceles triangle into two right-angled ones, and still use Pythagoras!

The system as it is does mean that one's visual field extends further to the side of one's dominant eye, but I'm not sure if/why/how that really confers any 'advantage'.

I had no idea about stammerers either, I do remember that left handers were strongly even forcibly encouraged to be right handed and some were really brow beaten into it apparently.

... and not only "brow beaten" - it was not unusual for other body parts to be literally 'beaten' if one dared to do anything with one's left hand.

I think a lot of that had to do with superstition, probably originating from 'fear of the uncommon' - I take it that you know that "sinister" is Latin for left?

It has always puzzled me even though I am right handed why with knife and fork we often use the fork in a spoon like manner but if no knife we use the fork as if a spoon in the right hand, strange that!

I think that, for right-handed people, it's more natural to use a tool in one's right hand to lift food into one's mouth, but when one needs to use both knife and fork to cut up food, it's better to have the knife in one's right hand. I think the Americans have probably worked out the best way of addressing that, and I think that a lot of 'us' are probably following suit

 

[ebee]

I take it that you know that "sinister" is Latin for left?

no i did not do Latin at school as a subject as such although they did have it as a choice but only a few (the swots) did that, I thought that Latin is a dead language so why bother. So sinister I was unaware of in Latin. I thought I did well knowing that Port and Starboard could be Larboard and Starboard but they were probably not Latin. Mind you my handwriting was so bad you would think it Latin like GP scribble

Americans do all sorts of weird stuff so I do not set much store by them .

 

[JohnW2]

no i did not do Latin at school as a subject as

We felt the same but had no choice - so had to endure it for three years. Worse, in the second year of Grammar School, we had to do a third foreign language (in addition to Latin and French) and the choice we had was between ancient Greek and German. Since virtually no-one wanted to do the former, a lot of people got 'allocated' to Greek, even though they didn't want to. I luckily escaped that, but after a year of German (which I didn't want to do, either!) I'd been so bad at it that I was 'advised to give it up'!!

Having said that, doing Latin proved to be valuable in at least a couple of ways. Firstly, as in 'sinister', it gave us some insight into the derivation of a lot of words in English. However, more important was the fact that it was only when I started being taught Latin that I learnt a lot about English grammar which, at least in my school, the English teachers didn't teach us much about - 'clause analysis' and 'precising' were about the only things we were taught in English lessons!!

So sinister I was unaware of in Latin.

Fair enough. As I implied, I can but presume that when the word "sinister" was adopted by the English language, there was a perception that there was something 'sinister' (in the sense we use the word) about 'left' - and, as I implied, probably the most likely reason for that was left-handedness ('fear of the uncommon').

Kind Regards, John

 

[ebee]

and, as I implied, probably the most likely reason for that was left-handedness ('fear of the uncommon').

Yes I can see that one making sense.
Fear of the uncommon has led to many great wrongs.
During my early life some things were common much more than now.
Lots of people seemed to think they had the right to have there common opinions upheld as the only true way to behave and any transgressor punished severely.
A common expression amongst our elders in many situations was "What will people think?" when I often expressed my opinion that I was not living my life for those other people but acting as I thought was right (and probably my close friends and family) .

I remember say 40 ish years ago one young lad coming home from junior school feeling rather indignant that he was the only one of his class whose parents were actually married to each other, to him it was a stigma to be the odd one out in his class, I chuckled to think that when I was that age the opposite would be the norm and anything other would have been seen as a scandal.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I'm also essentially ambidextrous with hand tools but saw cutting straight for me has always been troublesome which seemed to be fairly standard for us lefties at high school.

I found it a very useful trick, some awkward jobs, were simply much easier working left-handed.

 

[blup]

A common, and rather sad, story from the past, but that's obviously different from people (very rare) who are actually born truly ambidextrous.

A variation of that is some people are right handed for some things and left handed for others.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Mind you my handwriting was so bad you would think it Latin like GP scribble

Mine too, which I have always blamed on being forced to be right-handed. I was fine when practicing slow, copper-plate writing - the much slower pace, seemed to give me more time to think how to form the characters, and I could concentrate my brain on just that one action, but - try to compose, or take notes, it just became a meaningless scribble.

Americans do all sorts of weird stuff so I do not set much store by them .

It just seems an odd way to use a knife and fork to me, They use both the knife and fork combined, to cut the food, put the knife down, transfer the fork over to the right, to move food to mouth, then reverse the process, to cut more food.

As I implied, I can but presume that when the word "sinister" was adopted by the English language,

Driving Italian girlfriend, I had to quickly learn destra, sinestra, and direttamente

 

[morqthana]

I have heard that Napoleon chose driving on the right just because the U.K. didn't.

Moi aussi.

 

[morqthana]

hold up a finger at arms length so that it aligns with the object (light switch,clock, picture or whatever. Then close each of your eyes one at a time. When you close your non-dominant eye, nothing happens - your finger remains lined up with the distant object. However,when you close your dominant eye, your finger will appear to jump sideways relative to the distant object (in the direction of the eye you have closed.

Hmm.

When I try that, if I focus on the distant object I see two fingers, and if I focus on the finger I see two distant objects.

 

[morqthana]

... and not only "brow beaten" - it was not unusual for other body parts to be literally 'beaten' if one dared to do anything with one's left hand.

A good "party task" of dexterity:

For someone right handed, they use their left hand. Best to get them to sit on their right one, as otherwise the urge to bring it into play becomes virtually irresistible.

Also once started, you can rest your left elbow on a table, but your hand can't rest on anything, and you can't push what's in your hand (which is a full, or nearly full, box of matches) against anything.

You hold the closed box in your hand.

Open it, remove 1 match, close it.

Poke the base of the match through the top of the box so that it sticks out more or less at a right angle.

Open the box again, take out another match, close the box.

Strike the 2nd match and use it to light the head of the first. You may push the match sticking out to any angle you choose, but it must remain stuck in the box.

You'll find, near the end, that it becomes a test of nerve, as well as dexterity, but it can be done without burning yourself.

 

[morqthana]

Another - (I'm guessing right foot becomes left for the gauche).

Stand or sit at a table with a sheet of paper and a pen/pencil.

Lift your right foot off the floor, and start swinging it around in a circular, clockwise direction

Try to draw a '6' on the paper.

 

[morqthana]

Two-way switches, I try to ensure that if both switches are up, the light is off. That means with all switches up, all lights are turned off, irrespective of type of switch.

And all switches down also = off.

 

[ebee]

It just seems an odd way to use a knife and fork to me, They use both the knife and fork combined, to cut the food, put the knife down, transfer the fork over to the right, to move food to mouth, then reverse the process, to cut more food.

Conversely it actually makes sense to me I must admit despite what I said. it is (or has become) natural to me to use a knife an fork according to what I`ve been taught (trained/programmed ?) yet to change hands if using just a fork as just a fork or equally as a spoon or in a spoon like manner, I suppose it makes me just as strange as anyone else, including those Americans I mentioned!
I suppose that some of you more medical or physciatrictle amongst you might be able to shed some light on the reason of it.
I might be a nutter!

 

[ebee]

Moi aussi.

I looked that up.
Blooming heck, French and Latin and Italian words and phrases and here's me having some problems with "English"