Why do we wear watches on the left hand?
Like, who made that up?
— random affluent guy on the Central Line
At first I was bewildered. Here was a guy with his friends in London. They are in their early twenties. One of them was inspecting a Gucci box he bought. He was wearing his watch on his right arm. I’d expect them to know, they seem to have grown up in a place where wearing (fancy) watches is an actual thing! I was taught that watches go on the left, and I don’t live a life where I’d buy something Gucci. The people! I even tweeted about this, letting my frustration and anger vent.
An affluent guy just asked why do men wear watches on their left arms. Like, who made that up? #central #tube #london
— Gabor Javorszky (@javorszky) October 4, 2014Hold up though?! He has a point. Why do people wear the watches on the left arm? I actually have no idea besides “because that’s what I’ve been taught by my dad.” Look at me being judgemental and petty!
After a bit of Wikipedia, the answer is surprisingly technical: most watches have their crown on the right hand side. Operating the crown with your right hand while the watch is on your left is easy.
Operating the crown with your left hand while the watch is on your hard is inconvenient.
“What’s the crown for nowadays?”
You get to adjust the time when you travel across timezones, and if you happen to have a wind-up watch, that’s the thing to wind it up with. You could remove the watch from your hand temporarily to adjust settings though. Also, in the time of GPS synchronization and solar-powered watches, you don’t even need to touch that thing.
However even the Watch has a crown. On the right.