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.

@Rummikub

Right handed Fork in right hand I’ve tried the other way and it feels wrong! Who says that fork in right hand isn’t correct anyway?

Erm. Everyone who has laid a table either at home in in a bar/restaurant/cafe for the last few hundred years.

Do you not notice that the fork is always on the left and the knife on the right?

Right hander here - fork left, knife right. Husband on the face of it is right-handed, but the product of a god-awful system. He was naturally left handed and had that beaten out of him. So he writes right handed - badly. But he lays the table left handed. It's the last remaining sign of what comes naturally to him. I just quietly swap them round and get a bit cross about how reading and writing could have been so much easier for him if they'd just let him be.

Right handed, knife in right hand.

But as long as you're not doing the American fork shuffle, I don't mind.

Fork in left hand, knife in right hand. I am right handed.
DP is fork in right hand, knife in left hand.so eats like a left handed person yet He is also right handed but plays golf and tennis left handed and can't write with his left hand

The ‘wrong’ way. I can’t do it the other way.

Interesting a few people have said it’s bad manners , it’s hardly on a par with eating with your mouth open.

Personally, I could not care which side anyone hols their cutlery (American here), but surely it is a) a faff to hold cutlery in the opposite side to the one which it is presented in the place setting. Everywhere I have been, place settings are set as follows:

fork plate Knife spoon

This does indicate that the fork should be held on the left and the knife on the right.

Additionally, surely it makes sense (for the majority) to hold the knife in the dominant hand to have better control of the utensil which is doing the more "dangerous" motion?

wildrunner I wonder if my DP is the same as your DH from what you've said. Can I ask roughly what year your DH was born?

Does it matter? Less so in the absence of formal dining, but in a society with a bias towards right handed neurotypical people, the majority find it easier and more controlled to use their left hand for the fork and the more dextrous right hand for the knife.

While this presents an issue for some left handed people or those with other issues such as dyspraxia, there is a logic in having a consistent protocol. You walk into a resturant (especially an event when you're crowded around a circular table) and you know from a standardised layout which cutlery and crockery are yours. Very irritating to find someone using your items because they don't understand the layout and you now have to play swapsies. Two people cutting at their meat with clashing elbows is also not ideal. Practicalities of difference in brain dominance and co-ordination are far less an issue to me than being ignorant about the rules of eating and just grabbing any item near you.

In India I managed wipe with the left and eat with the right. In China I held my chopsticks too low for convention (I just couldn't get the grip high enough and apply enough pressure)

I have had to unclench from the rules that DM instilled in me as I have a DC with dyspraxia abd ASD and we need to start most meal times with reminding him to sit, and use cutlery and sometimes if the going is good and he's looking favourable to receiving feedback, actual technique. It's a long slog over many, many years...

Sheogorath perhaps I have a sense of humour... unlike you. Your only contribution to the thread was to be abusive to me

@Doyoumind

Sheogorath perhaps I have a sense of humour... unlike you. Your only contribution to the thread was to be abusive to me

Oh it was meant to be a joke? TBH I read it and thought the same as Sheogorath.

I eat the 'wrong' way. I couldn't care less and don't understand the judgement. It's like how teachers used to get the ruler out on left handed children. How on earth is it a lack of 'manners'. Pathetic

Right handed. Fork left, knife right, if using both. Switch hands if I put the knife down. At home I mostly eat with just a fork or spoon in my right hand, from a bowl, on the sofa.

I would say it's rather bad manners to say someone sounds horrible or someone is pathetic. The fact is simply that it's inefficient to cut with the left hand if you are right handed.

@Doyoumind

I would say it's rather bad manners to say someone sounds horrible or someone is pathetic. The fact is simply that it's inefficient to cut with the left hand if you are right handed.

But you do sound horrible, judging someone for something as completely arbritrary as holding a knife and fork in the "wrong" hands which has no impact on you or anyone else.

I've always held my knife in my left hand and I've never had any trouble.

We had some American visitors once and it was painful to watch them eat. They cut the food up as normal, but then put down the knife and transferred the fork to their right hand to transport the cut food to their mouths.

I'm right handed and I use the fork in my right hand and cut absolutely fine with my left. I don't get why it is so frowned upon and why people judge others on it. Just seems a bit pathetic to me.

I am left handed and eat with my knife in my left hand. Literally not a single person has ever mentioned it. It only seems to be on here that anyone cares.

For avoidance of doubt, if you pass judgement on someone holding their knife in their left hand, you are a ghastly Hyacinth Bucket-style social climbing snob. Actual posh people don’t give a toss about ‘etiquette’.

@Doyoumind

I would say it's rather bad manners to say someone sounds horrible or someone is pathetic. The fact is simply that it's inefficient to cut with the left hand if you are right handed.

But that isn't a fact. It's your assumption based on your limited experience and your obvious lack of imagination.

Weird that in any restaurant you go to that lays out cutlery for you (pre covid) puts the fork on the left and the knife on the right. That's the expectation of how people will eat. Or do you complain about their limited imagination?

@Doyoumind

Weird that in any restaurant you go to that lays out cutlery for you (pre covid) puts the fork on the left and the knife on the right. That's the expectation of how people will eat. Or do you complain about their limited imagination?

Yes, because that's how most people eat. Not all people. Some people prefer it the other way. It's no big deal unless you're some kind of snob.

@Doyoumind

Weird that in any restaurant you go to that lays out cutlery for you (pre covid) puts the fork on the left and the knife on the right. That's the expectation of how people will eat. Or do you complain about their limited imagination?

I lay the table that way too, on the assumption that it will suit most people.

I'm still capable of imagining that some people will swap the knife and fork over, and be perfectly able to eat efficiently and effectively, and in fact it might suit them better.

I suspect most people laying the table that way are capable of imagining that too. Especially those with a modicum of intelligence.

@Wheytaminute

The correct way.

I'm left handed and can manage to hold my fork in my left hand and knife in right.

I am very particular about table manners--there's no shovelling, elbows out or holdng knives like pens allowed here.

Why is this the "correct" way?

I hold my knife in my left hand and my fork in my right. It's only on mumsnet that I've seen people judging about this. why do you think using your left hand means you hold your knife like a pen? I certainly don't. I've studied other people and as far as I can tell, I eat in exactly the same way except its mirrored.

Using your left hand for your knife is no more "wrong " than holding a pen or a tennis racquet in it.