SINISTER

[Dr. Goodword]

• sinister •

Pronunciation: si-ni-stêr • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Adjective

Meaning: 1. Evil or presaging evil, suggesting wickedness, depravity. 2. Presaging something very bad or disastrous. 3. (Heraldry) Sinistral, to the left of the wearer (the right of the onlooker) on a coat of arms or shield.

Notes: Today's word is a left-handed recognition of left-handers. It originally meant simply "left, left-handed", as does its cousin sinistral today. However, left-handedness, like blackness, has been associated with evil for centuries in Europe and its former colonies have inherited that association. Nonetheless, this Good Word comes with an adverb, sinisterly, and two nouns, the lovely sinisterity and the rather ordinary sinisterness.

In Play: This word is usually saved for things portending evil: "Moshe, do you sense something sinister about the man in the mask holding a gun over there?" It need not be, however; it can also refer to anything threatening: "There is something sinister about the clouds hanging over the horizon; I think I'll carry my umbrella and an anchor."

Word History: One of the few overlooked persecuted minorities left in the world is left-handers. Only recently have US schools begun to provide desks for left-handers in the classroom but the speech police have not yet begun to investigate the sinistrally prejudicial words in English. Sinister began as the Latin word for "left" or "left-handed", then expanded to mean "presaging evil". A "left-handed compliment" is one with a hidden insult. Finally, there is the French word for "left-handed", gauche, which means "awkward, inept, clumsy". Should we quarantine these words as we do slurs against other minorities? (No one knows where Latin got this word but our gratitude to Perry Dror for getting it to us is as 'right-handed' as it is sincere.)

[scw1217]

As a left-hander, I find this word history very interesting, if a bit insulting (which is not your fault, good Dr.) I can think of some people I know who are right-handed and of questionable intelligence.

[Bailey]

I can think of some people I know who are right-handed and of questionable intelligence.

Yeah but they aren't sinister.....

mark loves-semantics Bailey
*twiddling mustaches alá Snively Whiplash*

[skinem]

Yes, my left-handed wife really loves it when I refer to her as gauche and sinister...
She just tells me she's the only one in the house in her right mind.

[scw1217]

Yes, my left-handed wife really loves it when I refer to her as gauche and sinister...
She just tells me she's the only one in the house in her right mind.

She'd be right!

[sluggo]

And righthandedness is directly related to dexterity.

Artists tend to be lefthanded at a higher rate than people. Whenever I notice someone's lefthanded I wonder about their, you know, tendencies.

[scw1217]

And righthandedness is directly related to dexterity.

Artists tend to be lefthanded at a higher rate than people. Whenever I notice someone's lefthanded I wonder about their, you know, tendencies.

Yeah, I have a tendency to get mad when someone insults my left-handedness...

[sluggo]

And righthandedness is directly related to dexterity.

Artists tend to be lefthanded at a higher rate than people. Whenever I notice someone's lefthanded I wonder about their, you know, tendencies.

Yeah, I have a tendency to get mad when someone insults my left-handedness...

They're just jealous they didn't get the artiste gene. Primitives from the shallow end of the gene puddle.

[gailr]

Do any of you remember Simon Bar Sinister from Underdog? Although his name plays off more than one medieval way to denigrate people, the primary inference is from the concept that a bend sinister (or bar sinister) is the heraldic blazoning for 'bastard' (also known in folklore as left or wrong side of the blanket).

So, Simon is eeeevil. Mua ha ha.

Just another example that no matter how exercised self-proclaimed morality police get about 'protecting the children' from any and all nefarious influences, there will always be someone smarter and with a better sense of humor lighting the way for future iconoclasts, heretics, and comedians.

-gailr
who is sometimes dexterous and sometimes sinister...

[sluggo]

For those of us in the US, this is a bit spooky:

John McCain, Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee are all lefthanded. Hillary is not but Bill is- and in 1992 all three presidential candidates (Bush I, Perot and Clinton) were lefthanded (and still are). Bob Dole, Clinton's 1996 opponent, was born righthanded but switched to left due to his injury.

What are the chances!?

{edit: apparently also Al Gore}

[Stargzer]

All I can say is that it all sounds sinister to me ... in the first two senses.