Do you wear a watch?

[angus]

Not at the moment, and not generally, but sometimes.  I have a nice diving watch that I always take on vacation and wear for the duration of the trip.  (With buses, boats, trains, and plane schedules, it's good to know what time it is during travel.)  I also have a nice Republican-looking watch which was a gift.  I wear it when I have a special seminar to give or a job interview or something like that.  I'd estimate that I spend about 95% of my waking hours not wearing a watch.

[angus]

unless I am submerged in water.

?!

But that's exactly the only time you ever really need one. 

[angus]

I think I always wear a belt "from left to right." 

Well, nobody would ever notice anyway.  There are certain personal acts which require manipulation and no one will know which hand you use to manipulate it unless they ask.  Or unless they get close enough to your crotch to see which way the object is hanging.  Your belt falls into that category.

[angus]

My son won a watch today.  Yay!  I ran 5000 meters.  Yay! 

We went to this Family Fun Run thing, and my wife and son ran the 1K.  I ran the 5K.  Came in about 10th out of about 50, and no old ladies or children passed me.  Legs are sore.  So sore.  I don't usually run or unless I'm late to class, or unless I notice that it's 8:55 pm and I'm out of booze.  (The liquor store is a six-minute walk, but if I run the whole way it's just under 3.)

Anyway, everyone got free t-shirts and my son got a Rawlins football.  Nicely made too.  Then there was a meal and a drawing at the end.  My son got called for a Puma sports watch alarm chronograph with all sorts of functions.  I actually bought him a nice Pulsar for Christmas, originally $99 but 50% off at Boscovs.  He wore that for about a month before he lost it.  I was bummed.  Anyway, I hope he hangs onto this one more than a month.  It's digital.  I prefer face watches, but this one was free and it seems nice, probably similar in quality to the one he lost.

[angus]

I don't think so.  If that were the case there would be some division along the lines of the Protestant/Catholic divide in Europe with English, Germans, Scandanavians etc., on one side and Italians, French, Spanish, etc., on the other, but if you look at maps showing how the majority of people do it, by country, it doesn't seem to work like that.  English and French and the Catalan part of Spain are one way; the rest of Spain, along with Germany and Southern Scandanavia go the other.  

It would seem difficult to manipulate the watch on the right arm, no matter which is your dominant hand.  They are designed so that if you wear it on the left, you can get to the knob easily without taking it off.  I know it can be adjusted on the other arm as well, but it is much less convenient.  
 
Having said that, I did a quick internet search and found that many people do wear their watches on the right, both inside and outside the USA.  Also, according to GQ.com, there is no faux pas in wearing it on either arm.  Also, according to Sheik Muhammad ibn Saalih al-Uthaymeen (may Allaah have mercy on him) it is not against the Qur'an to wear it either way.  In fact, he probably puts it best as a practical matter:  

"Putting a watch on the right hand is not better than putting it on the left hand, because a watch is like a ring, and there is no difference between putting a watch on the right hand or left hand. But undoubtedly putting it on the left hand is easier with regard to correcting it and looking at it, and it is safer in most cases, because the right hand moves more so it is more likely to cause damage to it."

I think that's pretty much the whole story.  When I do wear a watch I wear it on my left hand probably for that reason, but also because it is obviously made to be worn that way.  I also generally wear my wedding ring on my left hand.  But sometimes I wear it on the right.

We could probably also go on for days about top of the wrist versus bottom of the wrist.  I'm sure there's a website somewhere that says if you're gay do it like this, if you're French do it like that, and if you're Pakistani do it the other way, etc.  But I don't really think that matters either except for the practical considerations (e.g., when using a laptop probably top of wrist makes more sense but when torturing prisoners consider putting it on the bottom of the wrist.)

[angus]

I guess it was Danmark and Norway one way, and Sweden the other, but looking at more finely-grained data, I saw that in the far north of Norway they were with Swedes (and Finns) in this regard.  Not that there was a hard rule.  I'll try to find the map again.  Meanwhile, study this wedding ring map, which more or less runs the same way:

[angus]

I also found that some companies do make watches meant to be worn on the right.  They're not common, but they exist.  Here is one example from a Swiss company:



That particular watch retails for about $5000.  It is not necessarily marketed to Lefties, since others wear it on the right hand as well (accordion players, for example).  

Here's a non-exhaustive compendium of world leaders and which hand they wear the watch on:

Obama:  left



Hollande:  left and bottom of wrist (although he seems to be unaware of that)



Putin:  right



Xi Jinping:  left



Nieto:  watch on the left hand, beautiful soap opera actress on the right



Merckel:  left (does she ever smile?)



Lil' Kim:  left



Berlusconi:  left (yes that's a five hundred thousand dollar gold VC watch.  The man knows how to dress.)



Bush:  left (40-dollar Timex Indiglo)



cameron doesn't care for watches




Pennsylvania voters, notice that both Wolf and Corbett wear watches and rings on their left hands: