左撇子名人大盘点-英语点津

No.1 Barack Obama 贝拉克·奥巴马

In the past hundred years, the U.S. presidency has veered more and more to the left--not in policy, but in handedness. Barack Obama is the latest to join a long list of left-handed presidents from the 20th century: James Garfield, Herbert Hoover, Henry Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton were all southpaws.

在过去的一百年中，美国的总统们越来越“左倾”，这不是指他们的政见，而是他们的用手习惯。二十世纪以来一长串左撇子总统名单中，奥巴马是最近加入的一个。在他之前，加菲尔德总统、胡佛总统、杜鲁门总统、福特总统、里根总统、老布什总统和克林顿总统都是左撇子。

左撇子名人大盘点

What makes lefties so electable? Some experts think left-handed people have a greater aptitude for language skills, which may help them craft the rhetoric necessary for political office. And as for the bout of recent left-handed presidents, some think it's because teachers only recently stopped working to convert lefties to righties at an early age.

怎么会有那么多左撇子总统当选呢？一些专家认为，左撇子人群的语言运用能力更强，这种能力或许可以使他们在组织一些政治措辞时更为游刃有余。而至于近些年左撇子总统出现更为集中的问题，有些人认为这和教师最近停止对左撇子儿童进行右手使用纠正训练有关。

No.2 Bill Gates 比尔·盖茨

Claiming the nation's richest man among their number is a source of considerable pride for America's society of southpaws. In fact, the Microsoft titan and philanthropist is one of a surprising number of U.S. business moguls to be left-handed, including Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller and former IBM head Lou Gerstner. But the club seems to be a guys-only fraternity-- research suggests that while left-handed men tend to earn more than their right-handed colleagues, there is no similar advantage for women. A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research floated the idea that left-handed men favor "divergent" thinking, a form of creativity in which the brain moves "from conventional knowledge into unexplored association."

包括美国第一首富在内，是美国左撇子最引以为豪的。事实上，这位微软巨头兼慈善家仅仅只是美国商界左撇子巨贾中的一位，如福特、洛克菲勒和前IBM总裁郭士纳都是左撇子。不过美国商界的左撇子团体似乎是一个“女士止步”的男士联谊会，研究表明，尽管男性的左撇子要比右撇子盈利更多，但是这条规律却不适合于女性。美国国家经济研究所指出，左撇子男士更青睐于“发散性”思维，这是一种创造性的思维方式，使大脑“从传统的知识转移到未曾探知的联想中去”。

No.3 Oprah Winfrey 奥普拉·温弗瑞

The talk-show queen doesn't need much more to set her apart from the rest--what with her estimated 2.7 billion fortune and a magic ability to sell books just by glancing at them--but she also has the distinction of being a member of the left-handed club. Since men are more likely to be left-handed than women, that makes Oprah doubly impressive. She's in good company: Other show-biz ladies of the southpaw persuasion include Whoopi Goldberg, Julia Roberts and Angelina Jolie (her husband Brad Pitt is also a lefty).

拥有约27亿美元的身价和仅需她瞄一眼就能把书卖到脱销的神奇力量，这位脱口秀女王已无需更多特质来使她鹤立鸡群了，但是她同样也是左撇子俱乐部中的一员。由于左撇子男性本身要比女性多，这无疑使奥普拉更为引人注目。其他与她同为女性左撇子的名人也都非常出众，包括乌比·戈德堡、茱莉亚·罗伯茨和安吉丽娜·朱莉(朱莉的老公布拉德·皮特也是左撇子)。

No. 4 Napoleon Bonaparte 拿破仑·波拿巴

左撇子名人大盘点

Legend has it that Napoleon objected to the time-honored military practice of marching on the left side of the road with weapons at the ready in the right hand: it put lefties like him at a strategic disadvantage. Once in power, the story goes, the French emperor--whose queen, Josephine, was also a southpaw--ordered his armies to switch sides. Civilians in countries he conquered had to do the same. Hence, supposedly, the rules of the road as we know them were born, which also explains why the British (who, along with the Prussians, defeated Napoleon at Waterloo) still drive on the left.

据传，拿破仑反对士兵站在道路的左边而右手拿着武器这一经历了时间考验的军事惯例，这项惯例让像他这样的左撇子在战术上非常不利。据传说中记载，这位法国国王(他的王后约瑟芬也是左撇子)掌权之后，命令军队士兵改变左右列队位置。所有他所征服的国家百姓也都必须这样做。据说，因此也就产生了我们现在所知的道路法规，这也解释了为什么英国人是靠马路左边开车的。(英国人和普鲁士人在滑铁卢打败了拿破仑)

No. 5 Marie Curie 居里夫人

Not only was atomic scientist Marie Curie left-handed, but she was the matriarch of a whole family of accomplished, southpaw scientists. Curie, who discovered the principles of radioactivity and won two Nobel Prizes, was married to fellow lefty Pierre Curie, who was instrumental in helping Marie's atomic research and shared one of her Nobel awards. Historians believe their daughter, Irene, was also left-handed. Irene went on to win a Nobel Prize of her own with her husband--who, you guessed it, was also left-handed.

原子科学家居里夫人不仅仅自己是左撇子，她作为女家长，他们一家子都是建树斐然的左撇子科学家。居里夫人发现了放射原理，两次获得了诺贝尔奖，她嫁给了同为左撇子的科学家皮耶尔·居里，他对居里夫人的原子研究给予了很大的帮助，还和他的夫人分享了一项诺贝尔奖。历史学家相信，他们的女儿伊雷娜也是左撇子。伊雷娜也和她的丈夫一起获得了她自己的诺贝尔奖，而她的丈夫嘛......你猜对了，也是个左撇子。

Lefty scientists are hardly unusual. In addition to the Curie clan, Einstein, Newton and Alan Turing--founder of modern computer science--all were left-handed as well.

左撇子科学家其实并不少见。除了居里夫人一家之外，爱因斯坦、牛顿和现代计算机科学的创始人阿兰·图灵都是左撇子。