To ask if you consider eating with your fork in the 'wrong' hand to be bad manners?

[Whatsername17]

Just that really. My right hand is my dominant hand, although for some tasks (like painting and cleaning) I tend to swap between my right and left hands. I eat with my fork in the right hand and knife in the left. Today someone was complaining that their kids eat the 'wrong way around' and that they were worried and felt it should be corrected. It made me feel a little self conscious tbh. Do people really care about which hand you have your fork in?

[TeaRexit]

Fork in right hand here & Im right handed.

Also if I wore a watch, it would go on my right arm/wrist/hand side

[DailyFaily]

I can't think of many things I would care less about than how people hold their cutlery! I'm just grateful if my child uses cutlery

[Whatsername17]

I asked dh and he laughed and said he always assumed I put my fork in my dominant hand to shovel the food in more quickly!

[Yorkieheaven]

oh this is funny.

We are all right handed but both me and my kids eat left handed.

I was a cm and all the children I had from under 1 eat left handed too. I lay my table with knife left.

correct in Britain really what a silly post.

Who cares as long as you wash your hands before eating and don't talk with your mouth full.

Criticising the technical way people eat is the height of bad manners and forcing children to eat in a certain way is to me child abuse.

[Meow75]

As a left handed person, the only thing I struggle with is how to use dessert cutlery, as typically I have them both in my left hand when used on their own.

I have often pointed out to people who comment on my left-handedness, but use of knife and fork cutlery the conventional British way, about the fact that I do not swap my fork from left to right if I have only a fork, which is what a lot of right-handed people do, so who's the one using cutlery "incorrectly".

As previously stated, I would never comment on it myself first, but if someone else does, I will always defend someone. My best friend at school always sat opposite her parents at the dinner table so wanted to "copy" them and thus ended up learning the opposite way round, and she was often mocked when we were at school. I would often get very angry on her behalf, and I STILL don't understand why it's something that people still get so excited and judgy about.

[ijustwannadance]

Surely no one truly gives a shit these days if we hold our cutlery in the wrong hand.

Just another out of date notion of being upper class.

[Mycatsabastard]

I'm left handed but only for certain things.

I eat with fork in left hand, knife in right.

I write with left hand but can't use a computer mouse with my left.
However that means I can scroll and write at the same time.

I can write with my write hand but not as neatly.

However, if I tried to eat with my fork in my right hand, etiquette would be the least of your worries as I'd be lobbing food everywhere!

[Angiepoise]

I would find it bad manners. I would never say anything but it just looks wrong to me. Thankfully DH is similarly fussy

[wayway13]

If I'm eating out, I'll hold my fork in my left hand. If I'm eating in front of DD then I try to do the same. If it is just DH and I then I'll use my right hand. If I'm alone, I put my meal in a huge bowl and eat it with a spoon on the couch

[Fitzsimmons]

I'm ambidextrous and vary my knife and fork depending on how I pick them up. I think if you genuinely find this rude you probably need to get out more.

[MolesBreathless]

Well, eating the 'wrong way around' isn;t in itself anything to be worried about - nobody would bat an eyelid at a left-handed person doing this.

But

I have seen this style of eating quite often and it is usually either causing (or perhaps is a side effect of?) what I would describe as non-standard eating.

I recently watched 2 young women (18-20ish) in a cafe doing this and it just looked so odd - they were behaving as if they had never encountered either food or cutlery before and just made a complete hash of eating their meal. In fact actually eating very little of it at all.

I think it was an attempt to appear ladylike and delicate with their eating, but IMO, they just looked so gauche and awkward. In my experience, looking comfortable with your table etiquette will take you far further in life.

If you are truly ambidextrous enough to eat in a standard manner, but with your cutlery reversed, then I can't see a problem with this. It seems to happen so infrequently though, I worry you might be looking odd and awkward without realising it?

[GreatFuckability]

I would find it bad manners. I would never say anything but it just looks wrong to me. Thankfully DH is similarly fussy

but why? i genuinely need someone to explain to my why you'd care?

[MolesBreathless]

Surely no one truly gives a shit these days if we hold our cutlery in the wrong hand.

Just another out of date notion of being upper class.

Nobody really gives a shit as such, but they will notice, and silently judge you.

[imwithspud]

I am a lefty and I eat with my fork in my left and knife in my right. I couldn't tell you whether this was the 'correct' way or not, it's just how I feel comfortable using cutlery.

I feel 'rules' like this are a bit stuffy and out dated now. Does it really matter which hand someone chooses to hold their cutlery in? I would much rather someone be able to eat their dinner comfortably and properly, rather than struggle whilst potentially making a mess because they are trying to do it the 'correct' way.

[imwithspud]

Nobody really gives a shit as such, but they will notice, and silently judge you

It is ridiculous though isn't it? If a person judges someone based on which way round they hold their cutlery then those people clearly have too much time on their hands.

[MolesBreathless]

Its not so much about 'caring', it is more that it marks you out in a way that is likely to limit life opportunities.

For example, If I knew someone had poor table manners, I would never hire them to my team as I would always worry what impression they would leave in the mind of whatever client they were entertaining.

I suppose it is quite classist, and I can see that the world would be a better place if people didn't do this, but they do, and if you want to get in, they you need to play the game...

[MolesBreathless]

If a person judges someone based on which way round they hold their cutlery then those people clearly have too much time on their hands.

On one level, yes, but humans are tribal; we like people who are like us. I was taught to 'turn' at table (i.e. between courses, to switch my attention to the person sitting on the other side of me). I always spot when another person at the table does this too, and they notice that I do too. It's like an imperceptible nod and wink that we are 'of the same clan'. They are then more inclined to 'be my friend' for want of a better word.

Ultimately, we are social animals, and our forming of social bonds runs on a very deep level. I don't think it is going to change anytime soon.

[GreatFuckability]

so which hand you hold your fork in= bad table manners??

I just can't get my head round that at all. especially given its entirely cultural as to what is the norm anyway.

[OhGodWhatTheHellNow]

I do this too, always have and my DM spent years trying to 'correct' me as a child. Now my dd(5) is learning to lay the table etc, she commented I had put my knife and fork on the wrong sides and dh was flabbergasted - in 18 years he had never noticed! He spent the rest of the meal staring at my hands, trying to work out how I could do this

As long as you're not elbow to elbow at high table, do what works, better than peas on the floor!

[Angiepoise]

It's irrational. I was also taught never to turn my fork over but I've managed to break away from that one and shovel peas in like everyone else.

Very very strict parents (whom I don't see any more, long story) instilled these important values in me

I'd better stop this or I'll have an existential crisis.

[GreatFuckability]

i have very vivid memories of a teacher insisting i swap my cutlery over as a kid in the dinner hall and being made to feel awful. this same teacher made a huge issue of my way of turning the paper i was writing on because as a left hander its easier.

i think the only person with bad manners is her, to be honest.

[ASheepInWolfsClothing]

25 years me and dh are together, and I only noticed last week that he uses his knife and fork "the wrong way round" !! I tried it but I couldn't do it I can't believe it took me this long to notice it! I don't think it's bad manners though (clearly, or I would have noticed long before now)!

[Rachcakes]

My in-laws are a bit posh. I die a bit inside when we have peas at their house.
How the hell do you get peas on a fork the right way round?

[becciandbump]

Absolutely absurd it's not bad manners it's to do with the way your brain is wired just like lefthandedness anyone who is bothered about which hand you hold a pen or knife needs to get a life!

[MolesBreathless]

Rachcakes, you crush them ever so slightly with the reverse of your fork. You should be able to push them onto your (right way up) fork then.