I Met a Backwards Man

[AlexM]

Everyone has always been afraid to tell him due to fears that people will think they're racist.

[Fly]

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One of the students was a very nice elderly black man,


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el oh el [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Phil153]

I had this problem until I was 15 or so. Not this bad, but I could never remember which was left or right. I was 15 and watching a kid's show with a friend's brother when it clicked: "Left is the hand that makes an L when you hold it up". It was easy to visualize after that and a couple of weeks later it was natural. Watching myself think about it now, deciding left from right still requires the invoking of visual or kinesthetic memory from one of the times I've decided between left and right (such as visualizing a car turning or imagining myself writing. But it's instantaneous now as opposed to requiring thought.

Point being that you can do just fine for a long time without instinctively knowing left from right.

As for your dilemma, I'd mention it quietly to the partner. She probably already knows and if not should be the one to break it to him.

[PLOlover]

[ QUOTE ]
I had this problem until I was 15 or so. Not this bad, but I could never remember which was left or right. I guess I never learnt it young. My cure came while I was watching a kid's show with a friend's brother. "Left is the hand that makes an L when you hold it up". It was easy to visualize after that and a couple of weeks later it was natural. Watching myself think about it now, deciding left from right still requires the invoking of visual or kinesthetic memory from one of the times I've decided between left and right (such as visualizing a car turning or imagining myself writing. But it's instantaneous now as opposed to requiring thought.

Point being that you can do just fine for a long time without instinctively knowing left from right. You can hide these things well.

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I actually had this with the doppler shift blue/red coming/going and attributed it to the binary ness of it I could never just remember it.

[soon2bepro]

he's [censored] with ya dude

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
I had this problem until I was 15 or so. Not this bad, but I could never remember which was left or right. I was 15 and watching a kid's show with a friend's brother when it clicked: "Left is the hand that makes an L when you hold it up". It was easy to visualize after that and a couple of weeks later it was natural. Watching myself think about it now, deciding left from right still requires the invoking of visual or kinesthetic memory from one of the times I've decided between left and right (such as visualizing a car turning or imagining myself writing. But it's instantaneous now as opposed to requiring thought.

Point being that you can do just fine for a long time without instinctively knowing left from right.

As for your dilemma, I'd mention it quietly to the partner. She probably already knows and if not should be the one to break it to him.

[/ QUOTE ]

I still have no idea which letter I am going to write when I intend to write a lower-case d or b. Its essentially random, unless I spend a considerable amount of time (5 seconds at least) visualizing and trying to figure out which one is which. I am pretty much incapable of memorizing which one has the circle on the left of the line and which one is on the right.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
I had this problem until I was 15 or so. Not this bad, but I could never remember which was left or right. I was 15 and watching a kid's show with a friend's brother when it clicked: "Left is the hand that makes an L when you hold it up". It was easy to visualize after that and a couple of weeks later it was natural. Watching myself think about it now, deciding left from right still requires the invoking of visual or kinesthetic memory from one of the times I've decided between left and right (such as visualizing a car turning or imagining myself writing. But it's instantaneous now as opposed to requiring thought.

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I have problems with this too. I have trouble telling a left turn from a right turn on an overhead map. And clockwise-counterclockwise gets me every time. I can use mnemonics or do it intellectually, but it takes many seconds and I'm never quite sure about it.

[Badger]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I had this problem until I was 15 or so. Not this bad, but I could never remember which was left or right. I guess I never learnt it young. My cure came while I was watching a kid's show with a friend's brother. "Left is the hand that makes an L when you hold it up". It was easy to visualize after that and a couple of weeks later it was natural. Watching myself think about it now, deciding left from right still requires the invoking of visual or kinesthetic memory from one of the times I've decided between left and right (such as visualizing a car turning or imagining myself writing. But it's instantaneous now as opposed to requiring thought.

Point being that you can do just fine for a long time without instinctively knowing left from right. You can hide these things well.

[/ QUOTE ]

I actually had this with the doppler shift blue/red coming/going and attributed it to the binary ness of it I could never just remember it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have something somewhat similar with directions. When I give directions or say which corner something is on I visualize it on the city map of Austin, then I zoom out and look for California or the East Coast to determine which direction it is. It's an almost instant process, but unless I've seen a street sign that says East Highway whatever, or have traveled on it myself while considering the direction I need to see the map of the US in my mind before I can state which direction it is.

For whatever reason I don't have to do this with North/South I either don't think about it, or simply visualizing Austin is enough. Same thing applied when I lived in Madison, WI. OK, so I'm starting to think this is quite different than your situation or OP, but whatever, I've typed it already.

[andyfox]

My wife, who is 49 and very sharp, has started to mess up left and right a bit the past year or so. Not anything like this, of course, but forgetting which is the left and right, every once in a while, when I say "turn left at the light."

[Borodog]

My first wife, in an infamous incident, was navigating while I was driving. She told me to turn right. There was no road there. Only trees. I was squinting, looking up ahead for the turn, when she began yelling at me with increasing frequency and fervor, "Turn right! Right, right, RIGHT!" I looked at her bewildered, and she was (of course) furiously pointing left.

I stopped the car and said, "Oh, THAT right."

Strangely, that marriage did not last.