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AIBU?

Using fork in right hand, knife in left..

499 replies

AG29 · 17/12/2019 18:53

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!

OP posts:
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WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 19/12/2019 13:23

The gear lever in a car can't (usually) be used in the right hand in this country, in most of the world it is the opposite way round.

It doesn't require any fine motor skills to use a gear stick, though - you're just pushing or pulling a knob. I suppose it's the same as with the clutch - although it's the hardest pedal to control, it's still used with the left foot. Generally, if you're using your whole arm or leg, you can use either side - it's just when you have to start using fine skills with your wrists/ankles or fingers/toes that it makes a big difference.

Even so, I assume the gear stick ended up there by default, somewhere between the driver's and passenger's seats (whoever is sitting which side), just because there's no room for it anywhere else Smile

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sashh · 19/12/2019 13:31

OK what about eating with your hand? If you were to go to a muslim person's house would you use your left or right hand

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MinesaPinot · 19/12/2019 13:33

My DH is right handed, but he swaps his cutlery so he has knife in left hand and fork in right. He says he's always done this even when he was small. Noone has every commented.

My friend, who is also right handed, does the same.

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WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 19/12/2019 13:36

It's not a religion to hold your knife and fork the wrong way round though.
I suppose it's a choice though like your vegetarian analogy - if you want to keep on doing it knowing it's not the correct way, fine, crack on.

Of course it isn't a religion, but religion and ethical dietary regimes are choices you've made, as you concur (Grin). You won't die if you don't eat according to your religious/ethical beliefs, but you will feel uncomfortable doing so and it will feel 'wrong' and unnatural to you.

BTW, did I understand you right that you believe vegetarians keep on avoiding meat, 'even though they know it's not the correct way' ???

I think we should change the law so that all clothes can only be sold in one size: 'British'. These will be traditionally based on a 13-stone 5'10 man (or maybe an official 'proper' person size based on the aggregated measurements of every British Prime Minster there's ever been would make it more appropriate) - and anybody who isn't that size will just have to make do and adapt, no matter how awkward and uncomfortable it makes them feel - unless they actively choose to rebel and try to start willfully breaking etiquette by adapting garments to a size matching their own body requirements....

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MintyMabel · 19/12/2019 13:39

18 pages FRONT AND BACK

😂😂😂

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WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 19/12/2019 13:44

OK what about eating with your hand? If you were to go to a muslim person's house would you use your left or right hand

I'm afraid I'm not completely au fait with this - is it the 'eat with your right, wipe your bum with your left' tradition that some countries/cultures have?

If so, I can completely see the way of thinking here, but, just because it involves left and right in this scenario, I don't think it works as an equivalent. If the rationale is 'hygienic vs disgusting', then a much more realistic equivalent for a traditional western setting would be 'use cutlery vs eat with your fingers'. Just as shoving food in your mouth using any of your fingers would be just as bad as using any of your other fingers, the hands in which you hold your cutlery are equally irrelevant.

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Honeybee85 · 19/12/2019 13:57

OK what about eating with your hand? If you were to go to a muslim person's house would you use your left or right hand

I think when you’re invited to the home of a person from a culture where eating with their hands is a custom, the most polite thing is to adapt to what your host does, so eat with your hand (and ask them on forehead which hand is considered to be polite for eating to avoid mistakes ).

Just like as I was invited for a dinner to my Iranian friend’s house among with Iranian friends of hers and asked her if it was OK to bring wine to drink during dinner (she drinks alcohol normally but I wasn’t sure if it would be appreciated by other guests). She said it was fine, we all drank alcohol and even had ham though everyone there except me was a muslim. I would not have wanted to make anyone upset hence I asked whilst I normally wouldn’t think twice of bringing some wine over to a dinner with friends from my own cultural background unless I knew they wouldn’t appreciate.

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PurpleMice · 19/12/2019 13:57

We will have to agree to disagree on that.

Of course. I didn't expect you to change your mind based on the views of a random internet stranger! Grin

All I'd say to the OP @AG29 is that her MIL is the one being unreasonable. As shown in this huge thread, many people eat left-handed and it's caused us no problems. Many others just don't even notice!

Simply, there is no rational reason to object to someone eating left-handedly. All arguments have been so vague (based on projecting feelings onto a hypothetical person in a hypothetical setting), they are just plain unlikely to happen. It's fearmongering that Something Bad Will Happen! It just seems to be down to an irrational fear of left-handedness or to fears based on frankly outdated social mobility concerns.

And if you are judged, so what?! Pretty much everyone agrees that people who make that judgement are wrong. Someone upthread called them "useful arseholes". The OP's MiL is one. If she judges the OP for eating left-handedly, she's going to judge her for many other "slights". The OP may as well stick to her guns here. It'll stand her in good stead in times to come!

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Honeybee85 · 19/12/2019 13:57

Forehand, not forehead. Stupid autocorrect

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Minderbinder · 19/12/2019 14:00

As long as you don't inadvertently stab someone in the eye, why should they care?
You could explain that you feel more dexterous when you're being sinister. At least that sounds a scientific reason...

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Flipswhitefudge · 19/12/2019 14:02

My mother is left handed and I am right handed but absolutely cannot eat the 'right handed' way. It feels incredibly uncomfortable and wrong, so I am a left handed eater.

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WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 19/12/2019 14:08

It's fearmongering that Something Bad Will Happen!

That's a very interesting way of looking at it, actually. Maybe, if challenged on it, you could just bat it away with a "Oh, I don't believe in that superstitious nonsense!", that might bring a lot more rationality to it - and leave the petty 'cutlery-hunter' to be the one having to justify their bizarre beliefs.

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Flipswhitefudge · 19/12/2019 14:15

Also, my husband is a military officer and I have been to more formal dinners and dining in nights than I can count. I'm too busy judging them for drinking way too much port and trying to look interested in the never ending speeches to worry if someone is judging me on which hand I hold my fork in.

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TheKitchenWitch · 19/12/2019 14:18

Don’t you just use whichever hand is more comfortable? It’s akin to insisting everyone parts their hair the same way : it has absolutely no bearing on anything or anyone else so therefore cannot be “right” or “wrong”.
There are many rules of etiquette which are no longer applicable because they are not relevant to modern life. On the other hand, there are new situations which require new rules eg mobile devices at the table.

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WotchaTalkinBoutWillis · 19/12/2019 15:06

BTW, did I understand you right that you believe vegetarians keep on avoiding meat, 'even though they know it's not the correct way' ?

Sorry, just read that back and it can be taken both ways, didn't mean it like that at all!
I meant holding your knife and fork the wrong way round is a choice.
Being vegetarian can be seen as a choice as well. (that's entirely up to them)
If you want to hold your knife and fork deliberately the wrong way round out of choice, that's up to you too.
Crack on but know people might be thinking "why are they holding their cutlery the wrong way round?" lol

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bookworm14 · 19/12/2019 15:22

If you want to hold your knife and fork deliberately the wrong way round out of choice, that's up to you too.

I can’t believe I’m still engaging with this absurd thread, but I will try one last time. For a lot of left handers (I know not all, but a lot) eating this way is not a choice. It is the only way I can physically eat. I am not doing it out of ‘bad manners’, or ‘lack of education’, or out of some perverse desire to be different; I am doing it because this is the way my hands work. To argue that I am wrong is discriminatory.

If someone told you that writing with your right hand was now ‘wrong’ and you needed to switch to the left hand immediately, would you pay any attention to them? This is what you are doing when you tell me I am wrong to hold my knife in my left hand.

I don’t know why I’m bothering, to be honest; some people are incapable of seeing the world from anything other than their own, extremely limited, point of view.

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baggies · 19/12/2019 18:25

I do this too. Just assumed I'd picked cutlery up in wrong hands as a child. My adult son does too. I assume I must have laid the table wrong and he picked cutlery up wrong way round. Adult daughter uses them the 'correct' way. Can't believe it's an issue for some people. Grin

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PeopleWatcher77 · 19/12/2019 19:22

I am left handed. My knife goes in my right hand, as do utility knives, scissors, peeler and I turn a tin opener with my right hold with my left. My mum and my husband are right handed and both use the knife in their left. Same for my daughter.
Frankly, the idea of handedness being important is extremely dated and to be "corrected" is both insulting and humiliating. The mind boggles that someone thinks they have any say on how another uses cutlery! Hmm

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DuggeesWoggle · 20/12/2019 19:12

How the hell is this thread still going?? Got to be one of the most bonkers Mumsnet threads I've ever commented on. Who knew that cutlery was so controversial??!

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Celebelly · 20/12/2019 19:19

I swap hands a lot but never really think about it or notice what other people do. I just do what is easiest and more efficient for me to eat my sinner! If you're the kind of person who cares or judges how someone else holds their cutlery then I don't give a shiny shit what you think anyway as you're a twat.

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Celebelly · 20/12/2019 19:21

Dinner* Although eating sinners would be interesting

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surreygirl1987 · 20/12/2019 21:48

My husband eats like this. I wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't pointed it out. I thought it was a bit weird but who cares 🤷‍♀️

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kevintheorangecarrot · 20/12/2019 21:54

Fork in my right, knife in my left.

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evilharpyinapeartree · 21/12/2019 12:22

Fork in my right, knife in my left.

Here I am, stuck in the middle with you

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