To think it doesn’t really matter how I hold my cutlery.

[Frosty2894]

With all the things going on in the world right now, I’m writing a post about how we hold cutlery.

I remember being told I’m cack handed by my grandmother when I was a child 🤨 she didn’t say it in a nasty way but said she was similar.

I’m right handed. I hold my fork in my right hand and knife in left. This is the way I’ve always done it and felt comfortable, was never told or taught the correct way.

For years my partner has joked about how I can’t hold a knife and fork properly and even mentioned trying it the other way. I’ve tried - it doesn’t feel right to me. He told me that his mother would probably tell me to switch hands as it’s her ‘pet gate’. We’ve been together for 9 years. He’s not mentioned it for a while (until tonight) and I’ve avoided eating in front of his mother as much as possible else I feel paranoid. Feel like I’m being watched!

Generally my table manners are okay I think. I’m not a complete slob when It comes to eating or anything!

Aibu to think it really doesn’t matter? Partner has mentioned it tonight and does it really bleddy matter?!

I'm right handed. I hold my fork in my left and my knife in my right.

DH and DD are both right handed but hold their knife and fork the other way to me......maybe I'm the one that's wrong?!?!?!

Using your knife ‘correctly’ in your dominant hand makes cutting food easier and more efficient.

Which is why left handers usually hold their knife in their left hand, and why I asked why is this wrong.

If you use a knife in the non dominant hand and hold it like a pencil, you are more likely to be dragging your food apart and have less control, leading to scraping noises and potentially splatter.

I agree with this, my point was about holding your knife in your left hand, not like a pencil, which I was taught was wrong.

Couple of cutlery handling faux pas that irk me, though I'd never say anything.

Holding the knife like a pen - a fad for doing this went around my school [long time ago!] when it was thought to be the 'posh' way to do it. So whenever I see this I look at it in the same way as I do when people say, 'haitch' or 'Please call myself back' in the mistaken belief they are being 'correct'.

Clutching an upside-down fork in one's dominant fist and using it like a spoon seems to be increasingly common. When I see this it reminds me of children who haven't yet acquired dexterity. It looks [to me] childish, unsophisticated and inelegant and I imagine the people who do it still sleep with an array of cuddly toys, squeal when they meet a friend or anything similarly non-squealworthy, wear 'I heart Disney' tee-shirts etc etc.

Blimey. Didn't realise I was so [silently] judgemental until I typed out that lot!

@Onedropbeat

This thread is in the ‘news’ today

Came here to say this, this thread is all over the Daily Mirror! So in turn, probably everywhere else too.

@Ginfordinner

Using your knife ‘correctly’ in your dominant hand makes cutting food easier and more efficient.

Which is why left handers usually hold their knife in their left hand, and why I asked why is this wrong.

If you use a knife in the non dominant hand and hold it like a pencil, you are more likely to be dragging your food apart and have less control, leading to scraping noises and potentially splatter.

I agree with this, my point was about holding your knife in your left hand, not like a pencil, which I was taught was wrong.

The OP specifically said she was right handed.

YANBU

Does it matter?

I am right handed but when I was learning to use cutlery as a child I kept holding the knife in left hand and fork in right and had to be trained our of it. I have always worn a watch on my right hand as well and thought nothing of it until my father commented on it being odd for a right handed person to do so.

I have also been told I hold a pen very oddly.

Nowadays I use a fork for eating most foods, held in my right, unless I need to cut meat when I use the left hand for form and right for knife

Obviously people who are left handed should not be constrained by the usual rules. Using a knife in your right hand when you are eating rice, for example, would also be ridiculous, clearly.

In other instances, the correct etiquette should apply.

YANBU.

I cant say I've ever noticed how people use cutlery. Unless it's something like stabbing the shit out of your food with your fork and jabbing it with a knife, then chances are most people dont care.

There is a "correct" way to do most things, just means that years ago somewhere, someone decided this was the way to do it. Dont let it make you feel uncomfortable, that's not nice.

Forgot to add. In my closest friends house they rarely use cutlery, they provide me with cutlery and accept that is the way I eat. Thankfully they dont pass judgement on how I eat, that is not good table manners.

Some people here would faint clean away if they saw my almost 10 year old. He has no diagnosed special needs but has always struggled with coordination. He is ambidextrous (but you might say that he is equally poor with both hands rather than equally good, since swapping from left to right and not having a dominant hand has meant that he has only had half the practice at everything). He doesn't slurp or talk with his mouth full or anything like that. But watching him trying to cut up food is painful. Hands tied in knots, reaching across the front of his fork with his knife and then round the back to try to cut something. Holding the cutlery back to front. Right hand or left hand, he has tried them all and it's still a disaster that ends with his food skidding off the plate. He is, understandably, very embarrassed by it and in public will only eat things that have been cut into small pieces so that he can put his fork in one hand and stab the pieces.

@Janegrey333

Obviously people who are left handed should not be constrained by the usual rules. Using a knife in your right hand when you are eating rice, for example, would also be ridiculous, clearly.

In other instances, the correct etiquette should apply.

Why?

@TellingBone

Couple of cutlery handling faux pas that irk me, though I'd never say anything.

Holding the knife like a pen - a fad for doing this went around my school [long time ago!] when it was thought to be the 'posh' way to do it. So whenever I see this I look at it in the same way as I do when people say, 'haitch' or 'Please call myself back' in the mistaken belief they are being 'correct'.

Clutching an upside-down fork in one's dominant fist and using it like a spoon seems to be increasingly common. When I see this it reminds me of children who haven't yet acquired dexterity. It looks [to me] childish, unsophisticated and inelegant and I imagine the people who do it still sleep with an array of cuddly toys, squeal when they meet a friend or anything similarly non-squealworthy, wear 'I heart Disney' tee-shirts etc etc.

Blimey. Didn't realise I was so [silently] judgemental until I typed out that lot!

I do the form thing but I can promise you truthfully I am not a Disney obsessed squealer!

don't sleep with cuddly toys either although I have kept a couple of my childhood faves and they are in a shelf in my bedroom. Does that count?

I'm right handed and have always held my knife in my right hand, I'm not very dextrous at all and my left hand might as well belong to someone else whenever I try to use it to do anything! Nobody ever mentioned I was "doing it wrong" until my partner of 14yrs noticed a few weeks ago. I'm not fussed whether its right or wrong, who the fuck cares? Stupid man might be able to hold his cutlery in the "right" hands but he hasn't mastered chewing quietly or not constantly scraping his plate or wolfing down his whole meal in 3.5 seconds, burping loudly and then getting up and going outside for a cigarette while everyone else is still eating. Who'd notice me holding my knife in the wrong hand next to all that revolting behaviour!

I'm right handed, I cut my food with the knife in my right hand. Once cut I will put the knife down and transfer the fork to my right hand because I have more control eating that way.

I can eat with my left hand, but why should some 19th century privileged middle class nonsense trump my right to be comfortable when eating?

Not to mention that the majority of the world don't use cutlery as we know it. Sticks, fingers... Why people would judge those not conforming to cutlery manners says more about their misplaced snobbery than it does about the person eating.

@acatcalledjohn

I'm right handed, I cut my food with the knife in my right hand. Once cut I will put the knife down and transfer the fork to my right hand because I have more control eating that way.

I can eat with my left hand, but why should some 19th century privileged middle class nonsense trump my right to be comfortable when eating?

Not to mention that the majority of the world don't use cutlery as we know it. Sticks, fingers... Why people would judge those not conforming to cutlery manners says more about their misplaced snobbery than it does about the person eating.

Exactly! It shouldn't matter at all

Honestly? It’s not great and I would want you to learn to use cutlery properly in order to set a good example to your child / children

My husband holds his cutlery like you op, the only time it annoys me is when he lays the table 'wrong' for everyone. When I lay the table I manage to remember to do his place the way round he prefers, apparently he can't extend me the same courtesy!

@Brunt0n

Honestly? It’s not great and I would want you to learn to use cutlery properly in order to set a good example to your child / children

Again. Why is it ‘wrong’ to eat perfectly normally but with knife in left hand and fork in right? No one has yet answered this. To clarify: we’re not talking about swapping hands American-style, or holding your knife like a pen, or anything else - simply holding knife in left hand and fork in right.

@Brunt0n

Honestly? It’s not great and I would want you to learn to use cutlery properly in order to set a good example to your child / children

Me being left handed sets a poor example to my son?

Obviously people who are left handed should not be constrained by the usual rules. Using a knife in your right hand when you are eating rice, for example, would also be ridiculous, clearly.

In other instances, the correct etiquette should apply.

So how do you know whether somebody is left-handed, and thus 'permitted' under your rules, or right-handed, and therefore a social pariah? Do you ask them to sign something for you or write their name first to enable you to work out whether you should be judging them fiercely or allowing them freedom from it on a technicality?

Also, why do you feel confident to declare it clearly ridiculous when you say so, depending on the food being eaten? If etiquette is so crucial and the only thing that separates us from the animals, surely we must never waver from what these arbitrary old rules dictate. Etiquette is bigger than all of us - you, me, all of MN, everybody in the country - and must be obeyed at all times....

Honestly? It’s not great and I would want you to learn to use cutlery properly in order to set a good example to your child / children

Maybe it's just me, but I prefer to teach my DC to treat others with kindness and respect, and to recognise that we're all individuals, rather than to exact self-righteous judgment and condemnation over the silliest, random, trivial things ever.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Obviously people who are left handed should not be constrained by the usual rules. Using a knife in your right hand when you are eating rice, for example, would also be ridiculous, clearly.

In other instances, the correct etiquette should apply.

So how do you know whether somebody is left-handed, and thus 'permitted' under your rules, or right-handed, and therefore a social pariah? Do you ask them to sign something for you or write their name first to enable you to work out whether you should be judging them fiercely or allowing them freedom from it on a technicality?

Also, why do you feel confident to declare it clearly ridiculous when you say so, depending on the food being eaten? If etiquette is so crucial and the only thing that separates us from the animals, surely we must never waver from what these arbitrary old rules dictate. Etiquette is bigger than all of us - you, me, all of MN, everybody in the country - and must be obeyed at all times....

What a fascinating post.

@NewyearNewme2021

don't sleep with cuddly toys either although I have kept a couple of my childhood faves and they are in a shelf in my bedroom. Does that count?

I’m afraid it does.

@Brunt0n

Honestly? It’s not great and I would want you to learn to use cutlery properly in order to set a good example to your child / children

Yes. It’s not impressive and equally unimpressive to be so defensive about table manners.