Eating with a knife and fork in the wrong hands

[Getabloominmoveon]

Just sat in a cafe next to a whole family eating with their fork in the right hand and knife in the left. On the other side a young guy was struggling to chop up his food with just a fork. A few weeks ago an adult friend of mine admitted she didn’t know which way to set a table.This is In the UK btw.

When did this start? Have they never eaten with a table set with cutlery? Don’t people teach their kids how to eat properly any more?

At the risk of sounding like Hyacinth Bouquet AIBU to think that this is a basic life skill and people should eat with their cutlery in the right hands (unless left-handed, different cultures, Americans and all the other caveats of course).

@mathanxiety Why do you think that just because some people eat the other way around they must have terrible table manners?

I can eat soup and use chopsticks just fine 🤷🏻‍♀️

There is no 'right' hand to use a fork in, just as there is no 'right' hand to hold your pencil in.

You hold your fork in your dominant hand, since you engage with the fork more than the knife. So if you're left handed, you hold the fork in your (dominant) left hand, and knife in your right.
If you are right handed, you hold your fork in your (dominant) right hand, and the knife in your left hand.

I am left handed, so naturally, the fork goes in my left hand. And the knife in the right.

That is the only 'rule'. Fork goes in your dominant hand.

Maybe they were North American? You know there's other people in the world who do things differently right? As a Canadian whose been living in the UK for the last 12 years I cannot understand the obsession some people seem to have with what hand you have to hold your cutlery.

Because eating soup is taxing @TheBirdintheCave , luckily mathanxiety has equipped her kids to do it so elegantly and professionally that they get job offers purely on their soup eating and cutlery skills. 😁
Funniest thing I’ve ever read on here. Hilarious. 😂

Like most things, it isn’t a matter of life and death, but the correct way to eat is with the fork in the right hand, and never used as a shovel. Makes not a jot of difference whether you’re left or right handed. My DS is left handed, but was brought up to hold his cutlery correctly and has absolutely no problem with it.
For those saying it doesn’t matter, it’s just a means of getting food into your mouth, you might as well just pick it up with your hands and shove it in your gob.
When I see people holding their cutlery in the wrong hands, or worse still, holding the knife like a pen, it gives me the ick, and I do judge them inwardly. Pet hate of mine.

Im feeling quite resentful about my parents now.

I wasnt brought up to know how to 'manage' soup, I thought it was something that you washed your feet in at the table.

No wonder I failed all those interviews held in Michelin starred restaurants and ended up as a mudlark.

Fork in the left hand, I mean. Would help if I could tell my left from my right.

I'm impressed that you can eat soup with chopsticks!

@MarieInternette Makes not a jot of difference whether you’re left or right handed.

Your ignorance is sad. Of course it makes a jot of difference! Remove 'cutlery' from your post and insert pencil. Lets see if you would still write the same ignorant rubbish then. I do judge people like you, people you are type of person who decades ago would cane children for writing with their left hand. Sadly, that ignorant and hateful attitude has now been transferred to cutlery. There is no 'right' hand to hold you fork in. It is absurd to say so. Ignorance, a lack of education, and a lack of understanding from right dominant privilege is really uncouth and gives me the ick.

Me too. I panicked once and just stuck my face right in the bowl of soup. If only I’d been educated on such matters 😢😂

Very amused that the hand you hold a fork in makes a difference in how well a child will do as an adult.

All the right handed fork users are destined to fail in life.

I know I did.... I'm just typing this from my lovely little cardboard box, on a.side street, watching the rats nibble my toes just waiting for my next fix of fork deviant eatitng

@JennyNotFromTheBlock Maybe I am ignorant, but I thought we were talking about cutlery not pencils, pens and canes. Think you might be getting a little confused with the content of the OP.

I have no issue with whatever hands people use to write with, we weren’t talking about that, but forks should be in the left hand if you care about manners and eating correctly. If you don’t care crack on. Stick your face in a trough and eat like a pig if that’s what you want but I can assure you, it is you who is ignorant.

@MarieInternette Why is being able to hold a pencil, different from being able to hold a fork? Think about it. Engage critical thinking. I brought up pencils because
a left hander cannot write with their right hand. They ALSO, cannot use a fork with their left hand.

A right hander cannot write with their left hand. They also, cannot use a fork with their left hand.

Dexterity doesn't change if it's a fork, or a pencil.

There is NO DIFFERENCE between the two.

Try engaging your brain and utilising critical thinking

You are ignorant if you don't realise that. In fact, your attitude is backward and deeply disturbing.

I would love to do a poll on the 'life successfulness' of posters on this thread.

I reckon the most successful ones will be the posters who have the intelligence to realise that the hand you hold your fork in is not important. The people who are prepared to question the status quo.

@JennyNotFromTheBlock
As I said, my DS is left handed and uses his cutlery correctly as that is how he was taught, without issues, as a baby. Other posters have said the same. Left or right handedness has no bearing on your ability to hold your fork in the correct hand. It is not the same as writing. The level of dexterity needed to wield a fork is not that same as that needed to use a pen to write.

I can see I have hit a nerve with you, I can tell by your strongly worded posts back to me. Go away and use your “critical thinking” to learn how to eat properly.

@MarieInternette why is holding your fork in your left hand the correct way?

I wonder what you think of people who only have one arm and are eating very politely with their gasp right hand only. Disgusting pigs.

And those millions of people who use no utensils.... filth.

But why is it correct to use your left hand?

Why 🧐🧐🧐🧐🧐

What is so uncouth about using the right hand? If there's "no difference" in dexterity or anything else? What is it about the fork handle pointing the other way round that is so rude??

@MarieInternette Your ignorance is astounding. Dexterity most certainly affects how you how/wield cutlery. Why would you not think it would?? Read the responses on this thread. Almost all of the left handers say on this thread say they hold their fork in their left hand.

You, are wrong.

As I said, why would you think dexterity would matter only in the case of a fork, but not a pencil or anything else? You seem fixated by the idea there is a 'right way' to hold a fork. There never has been, you are mistaken, it's only your ignorance, lack of understanding of dexterity, and lack of critical thinking that makes you think something that is not in fact. Please educate yourself.

Well, the results would contain bias. clearly all the right hand forkers aren't able to read so couldn't participate in the poll

@00100001 Don’t be fatuous. Of course, a one armed person would be an exception. Did you think I would say they should starve?FFS

That anyone thinks that a lefthander holding a fork is different from a lefthander holding a pencil, is ludicrous. There is no correct hand to hold a fork in. It is what you are comfortable with and able to manage. It makes zero difference what hand it's in, except for in the minds of the small-minded, backward and uneducated who would have a lefthander's hand tied behind their back so they used the correct hand.

The backward and ignorant mentality is exactly the same as the pencil mentality. Exactly the same. Unfortunately some are so fixated on the idea that there is a 'right' hand to hold a fork in, they simply are too blinkered to see the flaws in their logic.

If it's ok to make an exception for the one armed person who is doing everything else "correctly".....Surely it MAKES NO DIFFERENCE?

And it's just a bonkers made up rule that actually means nothing? Because what is actually polite and good manners is to eat nicely and make good conversation and not make a mess....

Or are you secretly horrified at the appalling manners of the one armed person?

Left or right handedness has no bearing on your ability to hold your fork in the correct hand. It is not the same as writing. The level of dexterity needed to wield a fork is not that same as that needed to use a pen to write.
Totally agree. I'm left-handed with two left-handed parents. Never occurred to any of us to hold our cutlery the wrong way round.

I never knew for years that doing so was associated with being left-handed. Makes no sense to me. You don't need anywhere near as much dexterity to hold a fork as you do to write.