NINETY per cent of you will not have suffered the prejudice I’m going to talk about.

Monday is International Left Handers Day, when we southpaws get our moment in the spotlight.

It is a day when we celebrate people who rose above the limits of the right-handed world in order to achieve great things. For example, Aristotle, Leonardo Da Vinci, Sir Paul McCartney, Barack Obama and, of course, Justin Bieber.

There’s a popular idea that left-handed people are more creative than right-handers. This is apparently because their brains are dominated by the right hemisphere, which controls music, art, creativity and emotions.

I’ve heard some people argue that this is a myth. They say that compiling lists of famous, high-status left-handers doesn’t really prove anything. They say it may be true that Toulouse Lautrec and Robert De Niro are left-handers, but you really ought to extend the list to include Dave Higson from Chipping Sodbury, who is agreed to be a bit of a dolt.

These objections notwithstanding, I’m sticking to my belief that southpaws are likely to be creative types. I look around my colleagues at the Echo and see a surprisingly high number of left-handers. And this is a very creative group of people, as you’ll see if you ask whose tea round it is.

Another popular idea about left-handers is that we’re more clumsy, but apparently this, too, may be a myth. I’ve thought for years that my own lack of hand-eye coordination was due to my left-handedness, but that may be a prejudice that I’ve picked up from right-handed commentators. All I know is that you shouldn’t ask me to check the time when I’m holding a drink.

You may think left-handers are no longer stigmatised, and it’s true that we no longer routinely have our left arms tied behind our backs in an effort to make us conform to a north paw’s world.

Yet I still remember a school teacher bemoaning the high number of “left handed dopes” in her class. (Yes, Miss, it’s been more than 40 years and it still rankles.) And there are all sorts of little disadvantages that we encounter every day.

On Left Handers Day, we should put some of those injustices right.

To begin with, I demand the abolition of the word “right” to mean correct, morally unimpeachable and all that sort of thing. I think we’re owed an apology from Bob Dylan for the grossly offensive line “When somethin’s not right, it’s wrong”.

Similarly, we should do away with the words “adroit” (from the French for right) and “dextrous” (from the Latin) to signify any kind of skill and talent.

And we should get rid of the word “gauche” (French for left) to describe people who are socially awkward or who rarely manage to intercept any object thrown for catching.

I will allow the use of “left field” to describe something creatively surprising or radical. (That expression, of course, owes its existence to baseball. Most famous practitioner: Babe Ruth, a left-hander.)

I think left-handers should sneak into all the nation’s kitchens to replace the conventional knives and tin openers with their left-handed equivalents for the day.

And on this proud day for left handers, I will refuse to grasp any pen that a delivery person thrusts towards my right hand for signing with.

Right-handers will be expected to give left-handed writing a go. And not just any left-handed writing, but that wild, hand-around-the-top-of-the-pen writing that Barack Obama and some other extremely left-handed people do.

And people like me, who still do a few activities right-handed, will endeavour to fully embrace our southpaw tendencies and do everything with the left.

It may be best if I don’t use scissors that day.

n This column is for entertainment purposes only. No responsibility will be accepted for injuries sustained while using sharp objects with a non-dominant hand.