19/12/05
Today, about one-tenth of the world’s population are southpaws. Why are such a small proportion of people left-handed — and why does the trait exist in the first place? Daniel M. Abrams investigates how the uneven ratio of lefties and righties gives insight into a balance between competitive and cooperative pressures on human evolution.
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Watch:
Glossary
- southpaw – a left-handed person, esp. in sports
- trait – a characteristic, quality
- bone density – a measure of the amount of minerals contained in a certain volume of bone
- handedness – the consistent use of the preferred hand
- a roll of the dice – (informal) used to say that something could have either a good or a bad result
- the odds are – it is likely
- to imply – to communicate an idea or feeling without saying it directly
- minority – a smaller party or group as opposed to a majority
- rare – not common, unusual
- purely – completely
- persistence – determination to do something even though it is difficult
- skewed – not straight, distorted
- pawedness – the condition of having either the left or the right paw dominant (of an animal)
Discuss:
- Do we live in a right-handed world?
- Do left-handers think differently?
- Is it true that society tends to associate the left side of something with the bad (“two left feet”) and the right side with the good (“my right-hand man”)?
- Does being left-handed help in (all) sports? How?
- Does being left-handed make you more creative?
- Is there a stereotype that left-handers are somehow mentally or morally inferior?
- Does handedness matter?
- Would you force your child to be right-handed if it was born left-handed?
Practice Makes Perfect
Fill in the gaps in the sentences below with the correct form of the words in bold below.
persistence skewed roll of the dice
purely imply
- The criminal lived by his own ………… moral code.
- Are you ……….. that I did something wrong?
- It took a lot of ………….. and hard work but we`ve made it!
- Everything I did was ……… in the line of business.
- Opening a new business is always a …………. .
ANSWERS: 1. skewed; 2. implying; 3. persistence; 4.purely; 5. a roll of the dice
Answer the following questions:
Have you ever felt you`ve been in a minority?
Are you a persistent person?
Do you have any rare traits?
Why do people check their bone density?
What are the odds of you moving to another city?
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Explore it more to create your own teaching-learning experience!
6 Things Only Lefties Know. From wine bottles to subway turnstiles, the world was not designed for you.
Read:
Left-handers-6-things-only-lefties-know
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