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).

One of my teens eats left handed even through he is right handed. I'm not going to tell him to stop just because you think it's not the right way. Its comfortable for him, really what difference does it make to you?

I hate sitting at a table with anyone who holds their knife like a pen. It's so fuckin' annoying to look at.

You need to get Netflix.

You know, some people are left handed! So then the right hand would not BE the dominant hand.

But I didn't specify right or left. Just dominant hand. I.e. right for right handed, left for left handed.

I see what you're saying but I am a total heathen and use the edge of my fork to cut the food. I don't eat steak or anything like that which would require any hefty cutting.
For me, the fork is the implement which gets the most use and therefore is in my dominant right hand.

Is the "correct" way a UK/Europe thing only? What do other countries do? Do they "set" a table the "right" way?

I’m left hand and eat right handed except with a spoon which I use in my let hand . I also flip my fork over to turn it into a sort of spoon. Like a sort of hybrid English/ American style. Much more efficient!

I do this. Used to be ambidextrous when I was a child and I assume it is a hangover from that. I didn't realise I was offending people who watch me eat like weirdos

I'm right handed, use knife in right hand to cut & eat from back of fork with left hand.

If I don't need a knife I use my fork in my right hand.

Both kids (right handed) started by using a spoon/fork in their right hand & when a knife was added took it into their left hand.

I'm assuming by the lack of response to why people should use their utensils in such a way, there isn't a good reason - just antiquated bullshit.

Would you like to tell my husband, who is right-handed, but always swaps his knife and fork over so that his knife is in his left hand, that he's doing it wrong?

No, thought not. Stop being so judgey. What difference does it make to you?

I'm quite happy to own that! I know there's no reason other than convention but I won't claim I don't notice and twitch a bit when I see it.

It obviously isn't important in any grand scheme of things. I just find it annoying, as a leftie, to have it called the left-handed way when many left-handers don't eat the "wrong" way round and it makes no sense to me why they should.

So then it boils down to personal preference, not rooted in anything substantial.

I eat with it the wrong way round. No one noticed except my granny when I was 8 or 9. I’ve never considered there to be anything wrong with it.

Some people eat in a particular way due to disabilities. I have always had poor use of my left hand due to lifelong co-ordination difficulties aggravated by a small stroke as an adult. So I eat in ways that minimize the need for left hand use. As my left hand is just impaired, not paralysed, people may not always be aware of this, and may just assume that I'm doing it 'wrong', which could be very hurtful.

Add to this, of course, the huge cultural differences that exist.

I hate sitting at a table with anyone who holds their knife like a pen. It's so fuckin' annoying to look at.

And I hate sitting at a table with anyone who keeps watching how I (or others) hold our utensils. It's so fuckin' annoying to be constantly looked at.

You sound like my school friends mum who used to shame me over everything I did wrong.
I still remember the time she told me to eat the "correct way", made me put my knife in my right hand and then when I tried to cut my food it shot off the plate and on to the floor. That was also somehow my fault.
She was an absolute bullying bitch, no idea why she hated me so much and I really wish my parents had just told her to do one.

I just put the food in a trough and my family eat like pigs, it's no-one elses business how we eat, and who is anyone else to decide what is the "correct" way? People have been conditioned into using cutlery by societal pressure but there's really no need for it. If my children are ever invited to a fancy dinner in a fine dining establishment when they're older, they won't have a clue how to sit politely at the table and eat properly using table manners, but who cares?

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

@00100001

It absolutely can affect your chances.

When your offspring has got to the point where an interview process involves dinners with potential future colleagues in restaurants where other people are going to be following the cultural norms, it does make a difference.

People saying it doesn't matter what others think of their table manners are wrong. How well you fit in with social expectations in the working environment is part of the evaluation process for many careers. It's nice to have the confidence that at least your table manners are not going to hold you back.

Most of the people DD works with use their forks with their right hand after initially using the knife in the right hand to cut up food, followed by a switch of hands: we are in the US and that's the (clunky) norm here. DD has studied and worked in Europe, the UK and Ireland, and has been able to adapt without any need to take down her well thumbed copy of Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour and do cutlery-related homework.

It's an issue my ex had, I have no idea about anyone else because I don't know anyone else who holds their knife in the opposite hand to what I expected.

Well some folks are left handed as I am and some folks feel the need to judge others.

@mathanxiety But, as we all keep repeating, holding your fork in the right hand is not bad manners! Bad manners would be something like spitting your food out or putting your feet on the table, things that could actually offend someone.

If people think it is bad manners, it IS bad manners.

But why??? What is it about right handed fork holding that could be construed as offensive?

No it isn't.

Why is the concept of a dominant hand so difficult for some people? Why the hell would anyone force people to go against what their brain is telling them to do?

We don't tell gay people to be straight.

It's only convention because the majority did it. That doesn't make something the correct way simply the more common way.

It is absolutely the height of bad manners to judge someone for this.

Mmmhmmm.

Well, I'm doing fine in life despite my horrific use of a fork. Thanks 👍