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!

I’m still trying to fathom how the fuck you hold/use a fork like a pencil anyone?? I’ve never seen it happen.

I'm a lefty but eat right handed. I don't think it matters as long as you're wielding your cutlery effectively.
I do see people, like the poster up thread, who cannot seem to control their cutlery well at all, they wrap their fists around their fork and use it vertically, stabbing the food to anchor it to the plate while tearing a bit off with their knife. I saw a girl struggling to eat pizza like this. (In a restaurant in Italy, where everyone was picking it it up by the slice. First date, I thought.) Since then I've noticed other young people (not children, no obvious disabilities, couples out on dates etc) eating the same way. But it's neither neat nor effective.
Perhaps some children just aren't taught how to handle cutlery with ease any more - it's not a question of the right or wrong way, it's just how to use the tools with precision, for you, to get the job done.

I eat with my fork in my right hand as this makes more sense to me as a right-handed person. Can anyone who thinks this is 'wrong' explain why, apart from 'because it's always been that way'? Reminds me of the Victorians tying kids' left arms to their chair if they tried to write left-handed! Can you imagine anyone doing that now just because being right-handed is the 'proper' way?!

So OP, I think you're being entirely reasonable and your OH and his mum should get over it.

My dd who is 20 is right handed and also holds her fork in the right hand. She has always done this and has lovely table manners. Nobody really notices as she eats the same as someone who has their fork in their left hand! Her dad has always done the same too.

Perhaps it's because forks were a later addition to table cutlery. Until about the 17th century in this country we ate with a knife and spoon, a knife to cut meat and a spoon to scoop up juices/gravy/the soggy bread that the meat was placed on.
In this scenario, presuming you are right handed, it would make sense to use your dominant hand for the knife, for ease and effectiveness.
When forks became fashionable (the trend spread to this country from France/Italy) you might put them in the other hand, keeping your right hand for your knife, as that was what you were used to.
Just a theory.

Hence, you can sneer at the pearl clutchers all you want, but their kids aren't going to be embarrassed on a formal works occasion by not knowing which is the soup spoon or sniggered at because they hold cutlery in the wrong hand/like a pencil.

It's never occurred to me that people could be sad or insecure enough in themselves to watch others and even notice, much less pass comment on which spoon they use or which hands they hold their cutlery in - especially considering that it often takes a moment or so to look at another person and work out which is their left or right hand in relation to themselves. It must be quite a pathetic hobby to have.

It reminds me of these women who competitively under-eat and will project their own eating disorders or warped ways of seeing things on to other women. Bullies exist everywhere and should be challenged or at least not be entertained and capitulated to. I don't see why some boorish person's feelings of what is right or wrong for ME to do is more important than my own.

*@PriscillaTheHun

I'm with your MIL on this one. I'm amazed when people don't have basic good table manners (which includes holding knife and fork correctly)

@Charmlight
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OK in case ur own house or with close family, but I wouldn’t want to be seen eating like that in public, or see my child doing it anywhere.*

Wow. Some people need to get a grip ^

Aw long as people are using cutlery and chewing with their mouths closed what on earth is the problem??!!

Can anyone explain exactly why it is so awful and bad mannered to simply use a knife and fork the opposite way to the majority? Go on...

Ugh, they're rude! I eat the way you do too as it's most comfortable. As long as you eat, doesn't matter how you do it. Tell them to back off.

@bookworm14 no my upbringing, not ‘wrong’ knife and fork. Bad grammar is too

Well, this thread has certainly been an eye opener - and has rather put me off Mumsnet to be honest. I had no idea there was still so much narrow-minded prejudice against left handers. Dress it up all you want as ‘etiquette’ and ‘convention’ - prejudice is what it comes down to.

There is not a single genuine reason - not one - why holding your knife in the left hand is inferior. It is not messier; it is not more difficult; it is not more unsightly. If you believe it is ‘wrong’, that says more about your own mindset and class than that of the person you are judging.

I can't say I've ever noticed which way round people hold their cutlery. As long as they're using them properly I can't imagine ever noticing- or if I did, I'd assume they were left-handed.

What's correct for righty may not be correct for a lefty. There is no right or wrong way. Most bloody ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

It's not about right and wrong behaviour, it's not about class and the expectations that come with different aspects of society. It's rude for someone to try to make you comply to their rules, and this sounds like they are trying to shame you into line. My ex's parents were like this. They were not the main reason I left but it's easy to see how someone who treats others this way would raise their own children to be judgemental and critical, and my ex wrote the book in that!

Ah for one eat wiv me fok in me rart 'and.
Un I puts me left arm roun me bowl to protec it from uvvers nickin me scran. Ifin ye gerra bit close wen is eatin I'll fecking shank ye.

(Seriously. If this is truly so high on some peoples lists of concerns you must have amazing lives. Some people are more concerned with affording the food to eat than which hand some one uses to hold their fork.)

The reason it's fork in the left and knife in the right is because you use your stronger hand to cut the food. European style keeps the cutlery in place, Americans switch the fork to the right to bring the food up then switch back to cut again, which harks back to the old method in England when they colonised the place.

Its not difficult to hold cutlery 'correctly', it's not difficult to retrain oneself to do so either. Having eaten with hands, spoon, chopsticks, fork, and combinations at various times I can't say I've ever found it difficult to do things correctly. My children use each implement correctly too. In theory I would judge someone using cutlery wringly as I don't care about other people particularly but I would notice and would be surprised. It's so basic, but then not everybody has grown up in the same environment...which is where judgement on manners, 'breeding', upbringing, education etc probably stems from.

It's so basic, but then not everybody has grown up in the same environment...which is where judgement on manners, 'breeding', upbringing, education etc probably stems from

And which hand is it you use to remove the silver spoon from your arse hole?
Is it simply poor breeding if you use the left? Or is the spoon so wedged right up your chuff that it takes both hands and possibly a shire horse to extract it?

BUT MY STRONGER HAND IS MY LEFT HAND. Have people actually forgotten left handers exist?

What is all this utter nonsense about upbringing? For what it’s worth I am the middle class child of two oxbridge graduates. They gave not the tiniest of shits which hand I ate in (and my siblings eat the ‘correct’ way).

This has certainly been an interesting thread, I am another who finds it incredible that some people are so foolish as to care which way round someone holds their cutlery.

I feel sorry for the OP having such a rude husband and MIL and suggest she has a much more pleasant day at home without them.

I think that the "right" way evolved from sitting too close together at long tables so uniformity was needed - otherwise elbows on the cutting hand would clash when working. So there at least was a reason for the "rules".

Now we tend to do less eating at long overcrowded tables (on benches) it's less of a thing!

That’s the only vaguely sensible explanation I’ve seen, randomsabreuse - but as you say, it doesn’t really apply any more. I’ve never bumped elbows with anyone in 36 years of eating left handed.

Like Tartyflette I'm left handed but hold a knife and fork as if I were right handed. And that's only because a dragon of a school dinner lady forced me to in primary school. Took my ages to eat anything.

I am astounded so many people on this thread think it is bad manners to hold them the other way round. It's bloody ridiculous to think and say such a thing and prejudiced against lefties. For all other cutlery combinations, I hold them the left handed way, which is the reverse of right handed or ill-mannered according to some .

There are far worse things than holding cutlery the wrong way and eating without making a mess!

The reason it's fork in the left and knife in the right is because you use your stronger hand to cut the food. European style keeps the cutlery in place, Americans switch the fork to the right to bring the food up then switch back to cut again, which harks back to the old method in England when they colonised the place.

Manners and etiquette are intended as rules to ensure that people ca be socially comfortable together. That is to say, that they don't cause physical discomfort (clashing elbows), visual distress (mouth open with food) or mess (food going everywhere on the table).

I'm right handed, but retain far better control of both knife and fork cutting with my left. Possibly something to do with my dyspraxia, but but then my husband is the same and he isn't dyspraxic. My food has ended up halfway over the room trying to use the 'correct' hands, which is plainly more likely to cause discomfort than my neatly cutting up food with the 'wrong' hands.

Therefore it is far more important that the spirit of the rules is kept, not the exact details, which are a moving target, and as you say, not even internationally applicable.