to think that no-one knows how to hold a knife & fork anymore - YOU DON'T HOLD THE KNIFE LIKE A PENCIL

[Proudnscary]

...It doesn't make you look 'ladylike' when you hold your cutlery like knitting needles/pencils with a stupid pinchy grip. It makes you look like a pleb.

When, pray, did this momentous change take place and WHY??? I see it everywhere and it makes me worry for the future of our children who will all look like cack-handed imbeciles if they grow up to eat like that.

Who gives a fuck?

Do people spend all their time in restaurants staring at other peoples knife and fork handling skills?

Sometimes I only use a fork [common]

3 of my 4 children eat with their knives and forks in the "wrong" hands. Dh and I eat "correctly". What does it matter? I have no idea why they do it, but they look perfectly comfortable with them that way round.

proud thanks for the eloquent compliment - I think but i'm still confused about this pencil grip.

I hold my knife with the shaft in the palm of my hand (facing downwards obviously, I'm not a complete animal)and the blade gripped at its top with the pad of my thumb on the outside and the top part of my index finger on the other. Obviously in the 'wrong' hand for some people.

inneedabody I used my utensils in the conventional manner until the age of about seven when I saw an Oxo advert where Katy told one of her sons who was laying the table ready for Philip to come home from work: 'Forks go on the left, David.'

From that moment, I vowed to be a rugged individualist and hold my fork whatever the damn way I pleased.

It does mean that I eat like a monkey, but it's a price worth paying if it means I'm the sort of person who refuses to be bound by convention.

I use my fingers.

Only use a knife and fork in emergencies.

My favourite way of eating is just to press my face up against the plate.

i have to admit UsualSus that I can't help but look at how other people hold their cutlery. I think it says an awful lot about the person.

They may appear to be well groomed, educated terribly terribly niiice type, but a quick glance at the way they eat says it all.

is the wrong way if you use the knife in your left hand or right hand?

But I am a 'people watcher'

I think the main difference is where the end of the knife is - with the pencil grip, it's outside the V of the thumb and forefinger. With the 'traditional' grip it's inside the palm of the hand.

sistercarrie I've just realised that I put my finger over the blade if faced with a difficult cutting job.

Oh dear.

I have just checked how I hold a pencil and how I hold a knife. They are indeed slightly different. Phew.

Do people also still worry about others putting their elbows on the table?

How very petit bourgeois.

Ooh Proud, I love you for this! I'm totally with Fagbutt too - not usually a shouty-at-the -telly kind of person, but when Come Dine is on.....Do they deliberately find these people to wind us up?
Anyway...have a look at this -

www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=HKLP

When my brother worked recruiting naval officers, one of the first things they did was observe the candidates eating in the mess. Any chap with "hklp" marked against his name was not likely to ever get the job!

Like this OP?

I have never in my life seen someone hold a knife like this. I would kill them wth said knife if I did.

This is how I hold mine but a bit further up the knife than that

Oh, stop press. sistercarrie from your description I'm doing it right even though it's in the wrong hand. Thank you. For a moment there, social death was poised on a knife edge.

cack-handed imbecile is an insult to left-handed people by the way.

does ti really matter how to hodl aknife and fork?
really?
let's just say, that if you're in polite society, they wouldn't mention it anyway, because it's rude to, so who would care?

Even though it was a few years ago, I'm still cross at myself for not intervening in an Indian restaurant when a young man was eating his curry with a dessert spoon.

And to make matters worse, he was still wearing his hat.

Disgraceful.

wiki does it like this

How could you cut like that Angryfeet? But the most offensive thing is the green nail varnish. (Or is nail polish the more acceptable term?)

The correct way to do it is that you should not see the handles of the cutlery above your hand. Not sure how to explain, but does that make sense. They should be hidden beneath iyswim so you don't see the whole handle.

Probably confused everyone now

I'm not sure about the "pencil" thing as I don't think I've seen it, but to say people hold their knife and fork "the wrong way around" is just ignorant I think. I'm left handed and I had to put up with people commenting on the way I did things all through my childhood. It made me very self conscious and I forced myself to do things the right-handed way. It had the positive side effect of making me quite ambidextrous but that doesn't excuse the fact that grown adults made me feel like an idiot for something that a) I couldn't control and b) isn't actually a problem anyway. I hold my fork in whatever hand is convenient for what I happen to be eating because I have decided that people who like to judge others for something completely harmless just want to feel superior and are rather pathetic really.

Angryfeet I don't know what was worse about that pic, the garish green nail varnish or the garish green pile of slop she was eating

I have just checked and I think I hold my knife correctly, I have the fork in my right hand but that often changes. Is that OK?

Just seen the Wiki pic and I remember someone telling me that they way she had her fork in pic 5 is the wrong way to hold it and it should be upturned.
You see a lot of people on TV holding it like the wiki pic so who is right?

God this thread is puzzling me. I will stick to soup, is there a right way to hold your spoon?

Oh lord, I am confused. I can't quite picture it.

I know i don't hold either like a pen, or like in that picture.
that though, is because it's a hangover from my days at school in woodwork/metalwork classes, where we were taugth never to hold a saw, or a cutting implement or a chisel etc with a finger sticking out - cos if you slip, you could chop it off (DT teacher had part of a finger missing)
so I transferred that to my knife and fork.
I'm left-handed, so I hold my fork facing upwards (because it's a fucking shovel, it is not a spear! you cannot get any decent amount of food on it if you spear your food!), so I supposed I hold it in my fist like a spoon. I guess i do the same eith my knife. I do know that you can't see the handle of my utensil when i'm holding ,though.

ps: I eat regularly with the aristocracy (get me! ) and as I say, people with good upbringing don't care.

debs - it's correct in pic 5

Debs, oh yes, now soup spooning is another one.

Do you spoon ' away' in a northerly direction. Then you must also tip the bowl in a northerly direction. Do hope you are doing that?? pmsl