Why are Left Handed People Called Southpaws

Why are Left Handed People Called Southpaws. Per history.com, John Thorn, Major League Baseball’s official historian, told Wall Street Journal language columnist Ben Zimmer that he believes the term for lefties likely originated with a wholly different sport—boxing. In its coverage of an 1860 bare-knuckle prizefight, the New York Herald reported that left-hander David Woods “planted his ‘south paw’ under [his opponent’s] chin, laying him out as flat as a pancake” in the ninth round.

Why are left-handers called “southpaws”?

The “American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language” cites the conventional wisdom that the word “southpaw” originated &...
history.com