The irony about Bob Ewell's response to Mr. Gilmer's question about being ambidextrous is that he answers the query completely backwards because he does not understand the meaning of the word. To be ambidextrous means that a person can use both hands equally well; an ambidextrous person, for example, might be able to write or eat as easily with his right hand as he can with his left. When Mr. Gilmer asks Bob Ewell if he is ambidextrous, Mr. Ewell answers definitively, "I most positively am not, I can use one hand good as the other". Mr. Ewell should have answered that he is indeed ambidextrous, precisely because he can "use one hand good as the other". As it is, he says that he is "positively not ambidextrous", emphasizing his point by repeating his incorrect definition of the term, "one hand good as the other", twice (Chapter 17).
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