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.

... slap

Can't say i've ever noticed how other people use their cutlery! Couldn't care less either.
As long as they don't pick up gravy with their fingers it's all ok.

My boys struggle with cutlery being as their ligaments are so lax (like their fingers are only held on by skin) and they have special cutlery but they generally use their fingers if they can get away with it (inc gravy!). Oh well, at least they're eating and are healthy!
Fingers were designed way before knives n forks!

That wiki guide has horrified me- who puts their cutlery like that when they've finished? It's barbaric!

I know how to hold my cutlery. So do my kids. TBH unless I'm actually eating with someone, I take absolutely no notice of how nayone else is eating

HKLP people are not invited back to dine here.

I've just found the same wiki link - WTF is that resting cutlery position about? What peasant wrote that guide?

Never in my life seen anyone do that. I also eat backwards though and always have. Whats it even matter? Couldnt care less how anyone eats anything as long as they dont throw it at me!

i am constantly amazed at the things MNers give a shit about. criticise someone's cutlery technique when they're HKLP in order to spear you in the face; otherwise STFU.

I hate hate hate the pen hold thing. However my DH does eat with knife and fork in the wrong hands which makes my teeth itch a bit but his manners are otherwise really excellent so I have to let it go - but as a measure we do have proper napkins when we have our evening meal (all my other meals are eaten standing up whilst encouraging children to eat up)

I have ditched a date because of poor table manners - ie shovelling food in mouth speaking, wiping with napkin and shovelling more in. Beautiful man but Game Over for me.

I have to say in America I found it really hard to not stare at how bad people's table manners were with the shovelling in thing - apart from anything else it mashes all the food up and makes it look so nasty. I have no idea why a whole country seemed to have adopted this as the norm - I do honestly find it revolting. The thing is it is getting the same here and I agree that young women think holding their knife in that manner is dainty or whatever but they just look as if they have been dragged up.

My dd's are dyspraxic and holding anything is not easy for them but I do keep on at them about eating nicely - it is very important.

Agree LeBoff with regards the picture of the cutlery after finishing. What's with the fork oneway, knife the other AND horizontal to the diner?

That 'finishing' position would make me scream! Well, not literally. But it's WRONG!

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

This hasn't been my experience. THey notice. They may be too polite or laid back to comment, but they notice. And they often judge.

I am spending a lot of time trying to persuade my daughter, nearly 13, that these things matter. Have been since she was very little. It's an uphill struggle but it is worth being able to eat with anyone without being judged. My son, by contrast, eats beautifully.

Our French exchange girl this summer told us that in France it is very rude to put your hands under the table at a meal. You should keep your hands on the table at all times. I have to say that her manners were exquisite.

And, as a coda, I learned all the cutlery etiquette from my parents, who are empathetically not posh. We lived in a small semi. But they wouldn't let me get away with not holding knives and forks incorrectly.

Aaargh: holding knives and forks incorrectly, I meant!

I don't especially care (I hold my cutlery 'properly', as did my mother, my father did the 'pencil' hold) as long as people eat with their mouths closed and don't speak till they've finished.
A colleague of mine fills her mouth with food and then starts talking.
Makes me feel quite ill.

It is pretty obvious from this thread that although many cannot bear to see the pen thingy, there have been a couple of really defensive comments. Clearly those are from the 'penners'

Our French exchange girl this summer told us that in France it is very rude to put your hands under the table at a meal. You should keep your hands on the table at all times. I have to say that her manners were exquisite

If my mum or her brothers put their elbows on the table when they were kids their dad- my grandad- would take his belt to them! Literally.
Can't say i've actually noticed whether me mother eats nicely or not! I notice she don't put her elbows on the table though!

They do it because they think it looks refined.

I witnessed someone use their cutlery like this, to cut up a cheese danish

I worry for my sons ,we have been in the US for 6 years ...

come to this, eat it howevet you like and swill it down with beer chin chin !

'Her hands were perfectly fine, no disability at all. But, she held her knife in like a fist grip and her knife like a pen but with her palm facing upwards. Most bizarre.'

My DS has joint hypermobility and hypotonia, which affect his fine motor control and he naturally holds his cutlery as you've just described, but his hands look absolutely fine...

just to be awkward like

OP - YANBU.

It irritates me too.

They may have been Abra1d but her hands under the table thing is just convention. I believe it's something to do with not having a concealed weapon in medieval times. Some English people think the French are barbaric for eating horse and pooing in holes in the ground. It's just nonsense from both sides.

I agree unpaid that if someone was belting their family at an adjoining table that would be a marmelade-dropping moment.

Limited.
He was a bit of a tyrant from all accounts, died when mother was 14 (she was the youngest and only girl of 12) so never met him myself but the stories I've heard are quite shocking!

I do this - I don't like the feeling of when the end of the knife sticks into my palm.