Pod Academy

Left-handedness is certainly an everyday phenomenon. We all probably know somebody who writes with their left hand or possibly do so ourselves. But how often do we pause to think about what might be the cause of such a preference or how, something as natural as left-handedness, might be understood in societies other than our own? In his book, The Puzzle of Left-handedness, Rik Smits addresses some of the enigmas, rumours and paradoxes surrounding the left-handed among us. Rik begins by telling us about his background and how he came to approach writing a book about left-handedness. Rik Smits: Well I started out as a linguist, first in universities and then, when universities couldn’t afford me any more, I went in for writing because I always liked to tell people, who had no access to everything that we knew and were finding out, what was going on in the heads of these people and why that was interesting in a way that they would listen and could understand. That’s how it all began and I have been doing that ev