Using fork in right hand, knife in left..

[AG29]

I am aware it’s meant to be the other way round but I feel most comfortable with my fork in right hand and knife in left. The opposite feels uncomfortable and I was never taught any different growing up. It’s never caused me too many problems. I generally have good table manners.

My OH’s mum is a bit of a nightmare in general. If we eat there (not often thankfully but Christmas next week). She has told me to swap hands before but I don’t feel comfortable that way. To the point I avoid eating there as much as possible. OH reminds me to eat with fork in left if we are going over there too and I’m sick of being spoke to like a child.

Aibu to think they should just leave it be? Does it really matter. It’s not like I’m eating with my bloody hands!

Do what you want!

Usually the standard way is more comfortable and easier for right handlers which is why it came about, but you don’t have to do it that way. Many left handed people don’t for a start.

OK. I disagree. But that’s the issue.
I suspect you a have a bigger bee in your bonnet than me.

Like others, me, my DH and two children all eat this way. I couldn’t care less what other people might think about this, as I assume that anyone who has the energy to be offended by this is probably a judgemental prick. Commenting on another adult’s table habits however, that’s incredibly rude.

Having a convention of cutlery a particular way round will have its roots in a dominantly right handed culture (along with a negative view point of being left handed until suprisingly recently: a school friend changed schools mid-80s due to being "trained" to be right handed). There are some practical benefits to people eating the same way round such as the blades on knives cutting efficiently and not clashing elbows at a tightly laid table, tables are laid in a consistent order so it is easy to know what items are for your use and which order to use them in so these conventions aren't totally arbitary.

I grew up in a family from aspiring middle-class roots that were keen on that kind of ettiquette, and had it drilled into me. I've since ended up with a dyspraxic child who finds eating a physical challenge. I have to prioritise and strike a balance between socially acceptable eating (sit on a chair, use cutlery, don't palm food to your mouth, insert-chew-swallow, don't talk with a full mouth and spray the table) and not hounding him into meltdown over the finer points of cutlery.

I suppose the distinction between basic manners and style based ettiquette is if the behaviour negatively affects other people or causes other issues (such as being avoidably inefficient).

I thought I did OK with chopsticks until I went to China, and was corrected several times for being low-class and holding my chopsticks too low down. A few weeks later in Nepal and India it wasn't too bad as a right-hander it wasn't too bad to remember that the right hand is for eating and the left is "dirty" from wiping

Whilst it's patently too late for the OP, I don't get people saying they've not taught their children table manners which of course, includes proper cutlery use.

Isn't it part of the job of a parent? Less important than keeping them alive, but a life skill nonetheless.

I'd hate for my offspring to be conspicuous in company because of their table manners or to feel self-conscious.

OH reminds me to eat with fork in left if we are going over there too

Oh, please. What is your 'DH' thinking of ? Why is he pandering to old fashioned, rightly out moded manners at your expense. He (and MiL) is being exceptionally unkind.

If MiL ever corrects you again , tell her the seemingly unrelated story of Queen Victoria who, on noticing someone having made the faux pas of mistaking their finger bowl for a glass and started drinking from it, picked hers up and drank from it to ... to make the visitor seem welcome.

Serious conversation to be had with DH.

Oh, just RTFT and see someone has already got there with the finger bowl story. Great minds and all that.

It really isn't OK behaviour from either of them, but especially not from your DH.

But what is not ‘proper’ about eating with the knife in your left hand? It is literally no different in terms of messiness from eating the other way round. Are people misunderstanding what is being described? It is literally just holding the knife in your left hand instead of the fork. Can someone, anyone, please explain the issue without resorting to bogus ideas about ‘etiquette’ or ‘manners’?

The only vaguely sensible explanation I’ve seen is that if you hold your knife in the left hand you’ll bump elbows with the right-hander next to you. I can honestly say that in 36-odd years of eating left handed, this has not happened once. So what is the issue?

I do this, it bugs me when people say “your forks in the wrong hand”
My response, “show me where it’s written down that’s it’s a legal requirement my fork is in my left hand”
Or
Fine I’ll eat with my fingers then
Or
Keep the fuck outta my business!!!

Milktray

The only lack of education it shows is yours. Anyone who judges someone for holding cutlery in their dominant hand and the way that is natural to them displays astonishing ignorance and piss poor etiquette themselves. Guests should never be made to feel uncomfortable.

Would you judge someone for being gay? Its the same thing surely. Not accepting what is natural instinct to another

Some very peculiarly-obsessed people on here. How could it possibly be 'proper' manners to hold your knife and fork in your hands one way around but 'poor' manners to hold them the other way around?

I really pity people who have so little going on in their lives that they actually notice and feel the need to comment on - nay, 'correct' people on - which hands others are holding their cutlery in. I also feel sorry for those who have to put up with these arrogant, self-obsessed, controlling people in their lives.

I'm guessing these are the same folk who, if southern, delight in telling northerners that they are 'wrong' to say bath and assk instead of barth and arsk - or vice versa (that happens much less often, though).

As has already been said, you wouldn't tell a left-hander off for using their left hand to write with, would you? In the past, this was considered wrong, bad manners and deviant. In the past, black people were also banned from using the same water fountains as white people....

Just think, eh - over a billion Chinese people who don't know how 'wrong' and 'ill-mannered' they are every time they eat using chopsticks. Mind, they're obviously equally as rude in that most of them don't even speak English - the 'polite' language - at home either....

I guess Americans are all ignorant then as they eat with it the opposite way too

I am left handed and can only use a knife with my left hand !! It’s got absolutely nothing to do with table manners!!

Bookworm14 it’s not bogus, it’s established etiquette from a bygone era where at some point it was decided that cutlery and flatware had to be held in a certain way, presented in a certain order and used for particular courses. It is linked to money and class because richer people could afford all the different foods and courses and made a whole song and dance around it. So people were taught how to use the correct cutlery and thus show their status. My mum was specifically taught it at her boarding school in case she had to attend an ambassador’s dinner one day or similar 😂

Why is anyone saying it’s poor table manners? Since when did holding a piece of metal in your hand dictate whether you had manners or not? As long as they’re not waving it around in your face or flicking food everywhere what’s the issue? You’re all bonkers who thinks it’s bad manners.

Do what you want.

My sister and I are both left handed, so was my Gran and we all had fork in left, knife in right. My brother is right handed and has knife in left and fork in right.

Ask them which hand they would like the fork to be in when you stick it into their legs.

I would just laugh and say "eh.... Na".

We are all right handers who hold cutlery in the 'wrong hands' in this house.

Get a life. Seriously.

it’s not bogus, it’s established etiquette from a bygone era where at some point it was decided that cutlery and flatware had to be held in a certain way, presented in a certain order and used for particular courses.

There was also a time when left handed children were belted for using their left hands to write, and forced to use their right hands. Doesn't happen anymore though.

It isn't a person's fault if they were never taught the 'correct' way to use a knife and fork!

I can't help but notice if I'm at the table with someone who holds a knife as if it were a pen, or routinely bends their head to the plate even when it's not spaghetti, but I would never dream of commenting! After all, what might I be unaware I'm doing that annoys others?

It took all my courage to suggest to a child in the family that there might be a better way to use a fork than spearing it vertically into food with a closed fist and offering to demonstrate. Poor child was really struggling to get food from plate to mouth.

The comments are much more socially unacceptable than the unconventional cutlery holds.

I'd be inclined to say you are perfectly aware you wield your knife and fork in unconventional ways and you expect people to get over it and stop trying to re-run My Fair Lady with you at the dinner table because it's bloody rude!

I do think lots of these skills are being lost, possibly because of eating on laps instead of at the table. It shows up when you're facing people who have been taught and monitored as children. People will judge, but that's their problem.

The only thing that is totally gross and would make me not want to eat with someone again is seeing and hearing food going round in their mouth because they don't close their lips over it or are trying to talk with food in their mouth.

I figure if you can't hold a knife and fork properly then you'd possibly struggle with more complex things

I agree with you. I'd think exactly the same if I saw somebody holding their cutlery the wrong way - gripping the prongs of the fork with one hand and the blade of the knife with the other, rather than holding them by the handles.

Obviously, though, it doesn't make a fig of difference which hand they use for which item of cutlery - as long as they aren't holding it the wrong way.

I presume that's what you meant?

Tell your MIL to sod off.

Would she tell someone using a pen with their left hand they were 'wrong'?

I am from a proper posh family. Titles, royal connections etc. I have eaten at events & formal dinners with senior people from all over the world (royalty, bishops, politicians etc) The only rude thing would be someone commenting on how you hold your cutlery.

I can't quite believe how many people notice this at all. DD is left handed and I think she uses her cutlery the "wrong" way round but, honestly, I couldn't swear to it. It's not something I pay any attention to.

Also my sons eating habits concern her. He has autism, dyspraxia and hypermobility and struggles big time to use a knife and fork at all

This tells you everything you need to know about her. Instead of wanting to help her own grandson to live his life as best he can, in spite of the conditions and difficulties he has to face, she's ashamed at how he copes with the impact of his limitations. She sounds vile.