To despair that so many people have appalling table manners?

[Redpanda99]

Maybe I am just old fashioned, but when did it become acceptable for people to make loud slurping and lip smacking noises, chew with their mouths open, talk with their mouths full, scrape their fork against their teeth with every mouthful...aaargh!!! Whatever happened to good table manners? How can people eat and drink so noisily with no consideration for the people they are with? Surely it can't just be me who finds it disgusting? It gives me the rage!

Where /from whom are you experiencing this?

I hate it too OP. I hate seeing cutlery in the wrong hand, elbows on tables, talking with your mouth full etc etc

Someone will tell me in a minute I'm old fashioned and judgemental. So maybe I am. But I think it looks bloody awful.

I agree with all of the above. It's worst since lockdown people have forgotten how to behave nicely when in company.

Lots of people just aren’t taught table manners any more - so it hasn’t ‘become acceptable’, some people are just completely ignorant, not necessarily through any fault of their own, of what’s polite.

Many people don’t eat at a table, but in front of the TV instead where, presumably, such noises are drowned out by the TV.

Talking with your mouth full is a bit gross but 'the wrong hand' is a load of tripe.

I agree with @Sux2buthen

Were you in McDonalds OP?

With dyspraxia and ASD, DS is not a natural for table manners and has no patience to be corrected. It is not for the want of trying or experience of eating at the table.
DS2 is fine.

There's no such thing as "wrong hand". I was brought up with it but I have not pushed that on to my children. Eat comfortably? Same with elbows on the table. I think that's a load of shit too. Too prim and proper. Maybe if I was eating with the queen.

Chewing with mouth open and talking with food in your mouth is a big no no though. That's gross.

I also agree. There's no such thing as "the wrong hand"

Using the "wrong hand" or elbows or anything like that doesn't bother me at all. Not everyone has been taught those.
But noisy eating, talking with your mouth full, shoveling food in like you've not eaten in a week or picking through food/prodding it with cutlery before you eat it etc honestly gives me the absolute rage. It's just common courtesy to NOT do these things.

I would assume to be taught table manners it helps if the family actually sit around a table together and eat so the children can learn. That doesn’t seem to happen in a lot of homes any more.

@dolphinsarentcommon

There is no wrong hand for cutlery.

I'm a leftie and for many lefties the outdated convention for a particular hand goes against our natural/neurological instinct. Insisting that a person goes against that is in itself that height of bad manners.

I think "despair" is a bit dramatic. There are many things to despair about in the world and table manners is not one of them.

However, I do find it difficult that some of my relatives' children have not been taught what is polite behaviour at the table. Watching ipads and ignoring the conversation at 12yo is just rude. As is starting eating before everyone else has been served. Particularly bad is leaving the table as soon as they're finished without saying a word!

So YABU to "despair" but YANBU to be irritated.

I think a lot of people don’t have dining tables or anywhere to sit except on the sofa.

I have stopped being friends with people in the past as I just could not bear being near them when they ate. It was very sad, but I just cannot be near noisy eating.

Table manners, like so many other bits of etiquette were simply designed to make lower-class people stand out and look inferior. There is no logical reason for a 'wrong' hand for your knife and fork, not to put elbows on the table, empty a soup bowl from the front, or pass the port only to the left. It's a way of othering people.

@KrisAkabusi nailed it.

There is no such thing as the wrong hand for cutlery. That would imply that left handed people are rude.

Elbows on the table is perfectly fine too, and a completely natural thing to do.

Chewing with mouth open, or talking with a full mouth are bad manners, as is slurping noisily.

I have two children with ASD and table manners has been a thing for years. Youngest child is getting there finally.

It would be a lot easier if school had proper sit down meals where there was a member of staff eating with the children. I’m doing my part at home but it’s made very much harder when I’m the only one doing it.

The ex ate his food aggressively which meant the noise level was too high but what killed it for me was the constant critique and commentary of every single meal. If you are paying £10-15 for a main don’t expect perfection. I also don’t want a running commentary on my dinner.

I agree too.

Let people enjoy their food quietly, get the stick out of your arse and grow up if that sort of thing bothers you.

It's also hugely discriminatory.

And @KrisAkabusi hit the nail on the head. All the stupid Victorian 'etiquette' based around complicated table 'rules' was/is just a way of 'upper class' people trying to make themselves look better than others.

I hate seeing cutlery in the wrong hand

There is no such thing as "the wrong hand" @dolphinsarentcommon. Left handed people use their knife in their dominant hand, which happens to be their left hand. Are you advocating that we go back 100 years and force left handers to write with their right hand?

This is also a very good way of putting it.

Elbows on the table is perfectly fine too, and a completely natural thing to do.

It's extremely annoying if you're sitting next to the person with elbows on the table. And how can you use your cutlery properly with your elbows on the table?