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.

Not your ELBOWS on the table, unpa1d!

Wrists resting on the table. Not while using cutlery, in between courses or while resting.

Also one of my pet hates and we also notice it on Come Dine with Me!

I will hold my knife whatever way I want to thank you very much. Now go and have an aneurysm about something that's actually important.

ROFL

do you mean held like this?

you guys miss the point. it may look cack handed to you but it works for them. there is no right way of doing it.

i hold a pen with my hand like a claw. it still writes.

Mini, wonder if you hold your pen like I do.

I hold it between my fingers not my thumb and finger. I can't write any other way despite teachers spending years telling me I was wrong.

About the correct way to eat a bread roll, Being a lefthander I've lost count of the times I've eaten the person sat next to me's bread roll.
I was forced to eat right handed at school and for years I stabbed the food with the knive and dragged it apart with the fork. Am over it now but still eat right handed, and I hold the cutlery properlike.

ok..so you hold your knife like a pen...I'm not even sure if I do or 'don't hold it like a pen' I just know I don't hold it in a fist which looks fucked up...I cut my meat and veg with no complaints...

MCP I mean I hold my pen between my fingers I hold my cutlery the correct way

ahh..well I do the same but judging by the thread title we should be holding it some other way...like with our nostrils..bingo wings or something??...I dunno

well you try first!!

ok..bingo wings don't work!!!..lol..

HERE

About half way down there are pics of the correct and incorrect ways to hold cutlery.

I know of comapanies that take potential hires (senior) out to dinner as part of the selection process. They judge them on all aspects of their ability to behave politely and appropriately. So knowing the basics of table etiquette could actually be important.

WIBU to sticky tape my daughter's hands into the correct position when she was learning how to use cutlery? "mummy, I can't pick my drink up now" ... no problem, here's a straw. I only had to do it once :o

It's not only the aristocracy who wouldn't comment on someone holding their knife incorrectly - only a complete buffoon would actually pull someone up on it. Nobody with an ounce of manners would actually say anything. Oh, but they will notice. Believe me, they will notice and they will judge.

Hold your knife anyway way you want (thank you very much - ooh, defensive!) but rest assured you will be noticed and judged.

OP, seeing people HKLP (as my parents refer to it as ;-) makes my eye twitch. Probably down to years of conditioning by my parents to make sure I didn't hold my knife like that .

As long as you manage to cut your food up without amputating a finger you are holding the knife the right way.

The correct way to eat a bread roll is to stick it in your gob and chew. No sticking bread rolls up your bum in restaurants please. Very distracting.

Peggyblackett - my family says HKLP too - or that someone was "knocking out a novel at dinner"!!!!

My Dp holds his knife in the pencil grip and has also been known to lick his knife ......silent scream from me.
However MIL shovels food into her mouth then talks while chewing, while occasionally knife pointing while making a point. I often eat early with the children, which I know is rude, but I just can't take it...wails.

I notice this and judge like mad,but would never tell any one they are holding their knife wrongly

Funnily enough DD (8) and i had a conversation last night about the correct way to hold cutlery as she was struggling to cut her food.

I told her it really doesn't really matter how you do it as long as you manage it in the end.

If i held my knife like a pencil i wouldnt get far, very different to the way i hold a knife.
If using a knife and fork use knife in left hand, but if using a knife only to cut sandwiches, cake etc use it in my right.

Really life's too short....It doesn't matter!

I am sure that nobody actually comments to anyone holding klp, as said up thread, but it will be noticed, and noted.

So, those penners who think nobody is watching or judging in silence, beware!