First, it was the N-word, a real insult to, and label for, so many of our fellow Americans. Then, just a few years ago it was the R-word, a horrible way to describe other people. Now, I’d like to strongly suggest still another word that’s being used all too often and all too incorrectly to defile about 10 percent of the American population. It’s the L-word.

I refuse to expand or explain more fully the N-word or R-word. Both have had more than enough publicity. However, I’m more than willing to explain the L-word because of a personal connection. The letter L is an abbreviation for left.

There are several ways to define the usage of this word. One of the most obvious is the way people use one hand for writing and many, many other aspects of life. From this we get the very accurate descriptive terms of right-handed and left-handed. To put it another way, one hand is more predominate in usage. And as I’ve already implied about 90 percent of people are right-handed. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this concept.

The words left and right can be used to indicate directions. For example, someone in another city might tell a vehicle driver to, “Turn left at the corner where you see a Taco Bell, go two blocks and turn right at the corner where you see a Taco John place.” Here again, there’s nothing wrong with this concept.

There’s one more situation where the correct concept of left and right really connects. Here in the U.S., Canada and Mexico our vehicles travel on the right side of the roadways. However, the steering wheels for those same vehicles are on the left side. Thus, this concept can be considered as some equality between those two words.

Right about here there could be a legitimate question regarding the L-word problem. The answer comes from the way left has been corrupted as part of our nation’s political life.

For some really strange reason the words being used all too often to describe various aspects of political life are right and left. There’s a clear implication that right is right and left is wrong. All too many of the alleged commentators on television, radio and in some publications seem to consider the word left as representing something evil.

To my way of thinking, as a proud left-hander, I feel this use of the word left is wrong, wrong, wrong!.

I feel that a better and more correct word to replace right is conservative and liberal is the best choice instead of left. And in between should be a label like independent or indifferent for those Americans who really don’t care or lean either way in the political spectrum.

Please note the deletion of the names of political parties from the above commentary.

There are several other insults and errors involving the misuse of the word left in our nation I could comment on. However, because of space limitations, I’ll just go with one of my favorites.

Some of the know-it-all and it’s-my-way-or-the-highway commentators like to refer to the Left Coast part of the nation. That’s California and its alleged majority of wingnuts and potheads. Yet, this Left Coast designation is actually based on a firm orientation to the north. If the direction is reversed, like going south from Canada, then the “left” coast becomes based on the beltway boneheads in and around Washington, D.C., and New York City.

Within a few weeks we’ll be filling out the forms for the nation’s 2010 Census. One of the questions that won’t be asked is which hand is predominately used by each member of the household or family for writing and other activities. In reality, who really cares.

A few years ago I happened to find one of those little bumper-like stickers that declares “Lefties are all right.” Instead of placing it on the rear bumper of my car, I put it on one of the stacker baskets on my desk at the Tribune to reflect an actual truth about our nation’s left-handers.

Ed Shannon’s column has been appearing in the Tribune every Friday since December 1984.