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Put the shoe on the right foot first. The twelfth symbol of the Protreptics of Iamblichus. This audition is preserved in our word “awkward,” which means “left-handed” (awke, the left hand), seen also in the French gauche. Pythagoras meant to teach that his disciples should walk discreetly and wisely, not basely and feebly or gauchely.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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