>Being both left-handed and fascinated with language, it has always intrigued me that many languages use the word "right" to mean both a direction and "correct." There is also some negative implication to the words for "left" (sinister, gauche, etc.) in addition to the idiomatic expressions such as the ones you quoted above.
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>English is rife with things like this. I'm wondering how true this is in other languages.
>I'd love it if the others in our international community could chime in with their knowledge.

OK, bits from a few languages.

German, AFAIK, has distict "rechts" (anti-left direction) and "richt" (right as in legal, right as in correct). So while it's close, it's still different.

Hungarian has an interesting case: "bal" is left, and "jobb" (yob) is right, but then jó (yoe) is good and "jobb" is better. So there's the same word for right and better. Go figure. No particular anti-leftie expressions that I know of (that are printable).

In Serbian (and other south-Slavic languages), anti-left is "desno" (as an adverb; adjective is desni-desna-desno in masculine, feminine and neutral), which doesn't have any other meaning except political. However, the Russian word for that, "pravo", means "straight" (as an adverb - adjective would be prav-prava-pravo) in Serbian. Also, "pravo" as a noun means a right (legal), and also means the legal system, law. Law students say "studiram pravo" (I study __), Roman system of laws is called "rimsko pravo" etc.

"Levo" (and levi-leva-levo) means left in only geometrical and political sense... until we get into second meanings and slang. Then "neki levi tip" (some left guy) can mean "a nobody", "levak" (a leftie) can mean the same, but actually not much of slang is developed around the word. The lefties may actually get offended by such neglect :).