Which way round do you hold the knife and fork?

[Waxonwaxoff0]

And are you left or right handed?

Me and DS are both right handed, I hold my knife in my right hand and fork in my left - DS does the opposite.

Oops quote didn't work that was in response to @CraftyGin

I'm right handed.

Just a fork - right hand
Knife and fork - fork left hand, knife right hand.

The rest of the family are right handed but always hold knife in their left hand and fork in their right

I'm right handed and i do it the wrong way. (fork in right)

All 4 of my DCs do it 'wrong' as well. (probably because i'm the one they saw eating most often in their young years) Only one of them is left handed.

DH is right handed and does it 'right'.

@CraftyGin I can’t quote a quote.

Otherwise I just use my right hand.

The correct way, of course!

Seriously, the fork in the left if I’m holding a knife and fork and cutting up dinner like a roast.

Fork left. Knife right. I'm right handed and wouldn't feel in control if I was sawing or slicing away at something with the knife in my left hand. I'd probably lose a fingertip or two and quite possibly behead one of my nearest and dearest

The correct way

Fork left knife right.
Left handed.

It needs to be that way really otherwise people would be bashing elbows at the dinner table.

quite frankly anyone who cares about something so mundane needs to seriously get a life

You may consider it mundane but over the years the number of threads that has put poor/terrible table manners as their number one most hated and judged thing says that many don't share your view.

Perhaps your son is ambidextrous? I am and although I write with my right hand (made to at school) I favour my left hand for everything else and hold my knife in this hand. Although I can swap hands at any point with no loss of co-ordination/dexterity/strength

The correct way. Both my parents were very hot on that sort of thing.

My ex (and his mother) did it the other way around, which bugged the crap out of me.

I think it’s a bit like spelling and grammar; if you learnt how to do it properly, you will notice when other people don’t. If you didn’t learn, you might be baffled as to why it’s important to many people.

Right handed, fork in right hand, knife left. The 'wrong' way but it's how I've always done it.

The reason for holding the knife in the right is because it's the stronger hand for cutting (in rh people).

What about how the knife is held? I hate to see it held like a pen. It's an ineffective way to hold and extert pressure to cut anyway.

Baffled at all the right-handed people putting the implement which you need the most control over in their dominant hand. I mean, you just pin things down with a fork. So makes sense to put it in the left hand. You cut with a knife, backwards and forwards - dominant hand. Surely?

I could understand lefties holding their knife in their left hand.

And righties if they’re not needing to use a knife at all, to use their fork in their right hand. Eg if you’re eating tortellini or something.

I'm right handed, when using a knife and fork I hold the fork in my left hand. But if I'm eating something that just needs a fork like pasta or something, I'll use my right.

I really hate knives and forks - horrible cold metallic spiky things ☹️ if I absolutely have to use them then after I’ve cut up the food it’s usually just a fork in my dominant hand (right) but if I can live on finger food or anything that’s workable on a spoon everything is 👌

@ohdearmymistake bad table manners to me are things like eating with your mouth open. Not which way round you hold the knife and fork. That's just sad.

People who incorrectly hold cutlery really get me 🐐.

Ha! *my 🐐

Fork right, knife left. I swap a few times through my meal though. My left wrist is fused and cutting/feeding myself with my left isn't always easy!

We're all right handed and hold our knives in right hand and forks in left hand.
DS1 held them the other way round for years though.

Waxonwaxoff0

Perhaps this is where you have been going wrong then

When you have been here long enough you start to see the same type of threads/questions coming up. Many posters have dumped dates, potential partners for poor table manners. Manners start long before the food arrives.

If someone told me they dumped their date for holding the knife and fork the wrong way I'd think they were a freak.

I just don't understand how holding a knife and fork in the "wrong" hands is bad manners. How can someone find it so offensive to hold a fork in one hand but not offensive in the other hand? People are weird.

I think English people particularly are just intolerant of cultural differences tbh, also there is more class anxiety among the insecure middle classes than in most places around the world.

The wrong way.

Mumsnet has taught me that by doing so I'm an uneducated heathen unworthy of career or relationship success.

Weirdly enough my life has worked out pretty well despite this terrible travesty of culinary skills