In a right-handed world, why is a mans billfold pocket on the left side?
Dear Cecil: Lefties, southpaws, sinistrals, and other right-brained folk have to put up with right-handed design in everything from school desks to revolving doors to bound books. Given our minority status (though exactly how minor, no one seems to know … do you?), I can almost understand the dearth of left-handed fielder’s gloves and scissors. But one major omission in the anti-lefty campaign puzzles me. I stuff my billfold into my pocket every day with amazing ease; if there is only one back pocket, it’s on the left, and that’s also where you’ll find the button or flap to slow down the pickpockets. How in the world did Fashion, the Right-Handed Establishment, and Levi Strauss manage to do such an obviously levophilic thing? — Andy W., Washington, D.C. Cecil replies: Pockets have always tended to be placed on the left side, for reasons that have little to do with the free expression of minority rights. The Roman toga is said to have had just one pocket, which was invariably on the lef
