DH holds his knife like a pen

[user8558]

It drives me nuts.

It's pathetic that it irritates me the way it does. I don't nag him. I don't even bring it up (once ten years ago I did point out it wasn't the correct way, he asked what it was to me, I said it drives me crazy but that that's my issue)

It drives me silently crazy every day.

I'm ridiculous, why can't I just let it go?

How do you eat soup? I spoon it towards myself and sip it off the edge of the spoon. I can see that it is possible to spoon away but it’s a bit weird and inefficient (a bit like eating peas off the back of a fork).

phew! I'm not alone in the away / sip / don't cut the bread camp!

my DH drives me crackers with
a) refusing to use a soup spoon
b) spooning his soup onto his bread which he holds over the bowl to catch dribbles
c) scraping the pattern off the bowl (or soup plate) in an attempt to get every last soup molecule (at least he's stopped the wiping the plate with his bread if we're in public)

they think that it's the 'correct' way according to etiquette.

It IS the correct way.

Can one “eat” a liquid?

Yuck to putting a soup spoon in your mouth! Pleased to say I’ve not come across that one.

But I have a friend who when eating ice cream, brings it back out of her mouth on the spoon, in a neat little mound. 🤮

A soup bowl should be tilted away from you, not towards you. It’s safer apart from it being correct!

But I have a friend who when eating ice cream, brings it back out of her mouth on the spoon, in a neat little mound.

also my DH eating anything like ice-cream, yoghurt, mousse...

(andyes, you eat soup)

Except when it’s a cup a soup. Obviously.

beetucci I have, I’m afraid, been known to do this. Only in private. Unless I eat using a very small spoon eg salt or pickle jar spoon.
Don’t really have sweet tooth so think it’s about making the rarity last !
Only in private.

I am about to get flamed but I've noticed it's generally a working class thing and also more northern and usually women. Do they genuinely think it's more 'posh' perhaps?

This entirely. MIL, FIL and SIL all do it. I think they think it's proper/posh. I cannot bear it. I struggle to eat meals with them! (And I like them!) DH is the only member of his family to hold a knife correctly and I have no idea why he isn't in the HKLP camp. If he were I wouldn't have been able to continue with the relationship.

It's also a British phenomenon I believe. I had never come across it before I moved to the UK. We live in Canada now and I've never seen it.

If he were I wouldn't have been able to continue with the relationship.

That's sad.

It drives me mad too and (whispers) I think it’s really common!

My OH cuts food with the side of his fork. He knows it annoys me which makes him do it more, like most things! He's a knob!

@EmbarrassedUser

It drives me mad too and (whispers) I think it’s really common!

Well, at least you're honest about your snobbery, unlike your fellow cutlery bores who pretend their argument is based on concerns of ease and practicality.

The peas on the back of the fork thing is bizarre. It’s so impractical! I don’t understand why that is the ‘correct’ way to do it at all. MIL tried to get my toddler to do it once, as if we didn’t have enough food to clear up off the floor after he’d finished eating as it was! She insisted it was ‘just how you eat peas’ but I think it’s ridiculous.

@EmbarrassedUser

It drives me mad too and (whispers) I think it’s really common!

What's wrong with being common?

There’s nothing wrong with being working class, but common in this and many other contexts means “uncouth”. I doubt there are many people around who don’t care about being considered uncouth.

I can’t help the way I was brought up and I do notice when others don’t have good table-manners. I don’t say anything obvs but I do notice. I have very good friends who are thoughtful, kind and generous to a fault but I cringe when we’re out to dinner when they cut up their bread rolls and butter them on the palm of their hands. They both also lick their knives.

With friends like you...

I cringe when we’re out to dinner when they cut up their bread rolls and butter them on the palm of their hands. They both also lick their knives.

The licking the knives I see your point on, but cutting your roll and holding it to butter instead of ripping and holding the resulting randomly-shaped pieces down on a plate to butter them? Really? Your lovely friends must feel like they're in Downton Abbey with your beady eyes on them, noting and judging their every move.

I just can't get into my head how people care about arbitrary rules like this, much less even notice them in the first place. Don't you normally just either look down at your own plate or at your companions' faces?

Oh so many rules.
I agree that soup should be spooned away and sipped from the edge of a soup spoon (in the UK where side plates are provided for rolls, the spoon should be used to put some soup on the side plate, preferably in a dainty swirl, and the broken bread then mops it).

I think it is acceptable nowadays to use knife and fork to cut and then put down the knife and switch the fork to the right hand. Also perfectly acceptable to eat suppers like macaroni, chilli-con, etc with just a fork in the right hand.

I was brought up to eat a banana with a knife and fork - cutting the end off with a fruit knife first. And silver grape scissors.

It is the height of bad manners to sneer at those to whom the rules don't come naturally. MÌL, however licks her plate, counts food and talks about ignorant mothers who were hairdressers and went to Benidorm as only a deputy primary head can. But in her company I nod and smile and bite back temptation.

Nothing else for it...LTB😂😂😂

Mention of rolls and butter and butter knives and so on has reminded me about the etiquette I was taught for helping myself to butter (for my roll) from a large butter dish to be shared with others. Unless there's a butter knife provided I was. taught to take my clean and crumb-free knife and help myself to a goodly portion of butter, which goes on the side plate. You butter the roll in torn pieces, from there. No dipping back into the butter dish with a mucky/ crumby knife.

We have a dear friend who stays so often she thinks she's at home here. On a Sunday morning we sometimes offer a full-English and I have to pretend I don't see her use the knife she's just eaten bacon and eggs with to help herself to butter from the butter dish. She then puts the buttery knife in the marmalade and after she's spread it she licks the knife and puts it to one side. Sometimes she has a second slice of toast and unless I can get her a clean knife in time she uses the licked one to help herself to more butter and marmalade. I always put out an extra knife for the butter and a spoon for the marmalade and then people treat me as if I've gone all la-di-da.

It's not just good manners, it's about hygiene and not having butter festering in the marmalade.

Especially in these coviddy times @shedbuilder bit hey ho there had to be a government announcement asking people to wash their hands after using the lavatory and to sneeze into a hankie! Hankie just autocorrected to ham pie. Made me laugh anyway - as it's an etiquette thread

shed how awful !
Reminded me of great thing heard - if you’re in a new relationship and need to know what they are really like, fundamentally, just check their marmelade/jam/marmite jar/s. If any butter at all in there, run a mile.

I’d probably add ‘if they don’t have marmite in then run anyway’.

I realise I sound like Damian Trench (don't know if anyone else loves In and Out of the Kitchen) but I'm from an ordinary working class background. My mum was secretary in a smart West End company before she had children and she was determined that even if I ate beans from a tin with a spoon in private (which has been known) I could, if required, eat with the Queen without embarrassing myself too much.