Jessica Wynn

Yeah, I mean, to a degree.

I mean, the brain is plastic, so you can train it, but most people still have a dominant side.

Cultures, you know, like we were talking about East Germany, they try to control what hand you write and eat with, but it can't control every movement you make in the world.

Evolutionary theories suggest left-handedness might have offered an advantage in combat because opponents weren't prepared to defend themselves from that angle.

I mean, everyone thinks that.

I thought that.

The idea that it's because the left-handed pitcher's arm is on the south side of the diamond.

But the term southpaw showed up in 1813 in a publication called Tickler and

Decades before baseball existed.

They were more innocent about it back then.

Yeah, me too, but it actually originated from boxing.

So historically, north and right were associated with heaven and angels.

South and left, that's the devil's territory.

So paw meant hand, and south was linked to sinister, which is Latin for left.

So a sinister punch was described with the slang southpaw.

It's just another linguistic reminder that lefties were literally seen as evil.

It would be so much cooler.

But the word was seen in a few political cartoons as well in the 1800s, describing like debate beatdowns.

But then baseball came along in the 1840s.

Right, yeah.