AIBU to think knife is IN FRONT of the fork! (lighthearted, but infuriating)

[TheQuickSloth]

DS is learning to use a knife and fork properly and we’re trying to teach him how to position the knife when cutting something, so that the knife is on the ‘far side’ of the fork away from him, and not closest to him. Put the fork in, then cut off the bit of food your fork is in so you can eat it.

From DS’s point of view: Him - Fork - Knife. Hopefully that’s clear and so far, utterly normal. I’ve attached a diagram to avoid confusion.

But at dinner tonight, DS put his knife the other side of the fork, so closer to him than the knife. I explained to move it 'in front' and why that would make it easier, and he said “No, Daddy said the fork should be behind the knife”. I looked at DH and he said, “Mummy’s right, it needs to be the other side”. “But that’s in front!” DS said looking puzzled. As was I!

We breezed past that in the moment, but tonight we were talking and I feel like one of us is going insane. He cannot understand my position, and I cannot understand his at all.

DH says the knife is BEHIND the fork.
I say the knife is IN FRONT OF the fork.

DH’s argument: “If the knife was a panda and the fork was a rock, then from where you are, you’d say the panda was hiding behind the rock. It’s hidden, it’s obscured, it’s behind something else!”

But to me it’s in front of the fork because it’s further away. So if the knife and fork were in a race, then the knife would very much be winning. You reach past the fork and therefore move in front of it.

So even though DS agrees (which is good enough for me!), I’d like a more representative judgement.

YABU - DH is right, the knife is BEHIND the fork! AKA ‘Shy panda style’
YANBU - I’m right, the knife is obviously IN FRONT of the fork! AKA ‘winning the race style’

Jesus. That has boggled my mind.

I’d say it’s in front.

Top marks for including a diagram even though it's not a parking thread. Though where are the panda and rock?

YANBU - definitely in front.

The knife is in front of the fork. Just trying to work out why, I think it's because it's from the fork's perspective? "The knife is in front of me"

All I know is, you can de-escalate with, fork goes between DS and knife.

As someone who recently had an argument with my DH over what "turn to the right" means (one of us thinks it means clockwise, the other anticlockwise), I feel your pain.

Specially because you're wrong on this occasion.

I have spent 20 minutes pondering this.

And the good news is your son agrees with your positioning so technically that makes you right.

Your DP must declare his is wrong and the knife goes in the front.

You're both right. If the panda is facing the person eating, husband is correct. If the panda is facing away from the person eating, you are correct.

I would suggest putting the fork into the piece and anchoring it then cut a small slice off. That might have to be cut again to give something mouth sized.

But the fork is in front of you, and the knife is behind the fork from your perspective?

I’m glad to see that we’re not the only family that have these ridiculously heated debates over such inconsequential details!

Yes, but if you were the fork (with your tines being your head), then you would describe the knife as being in front of you.

😂 I'd see the knife as behind the fork. But you happen to have hit on a linguistic issue that has come up in my RL as a foreign language learner and then teacher. If you were in a taxi and wanted to be dropped at a spot just after driving past the pub, in English you'd say to the driver, "Please drop me just beyond/after/past the pub" because you're getting to the pub before the dropping point. In Chinese and Japanese, and probably other languages I don't know, you'd ask the driver to drop you "just ahead of / in front of the pub" because you are going that direction so the dropping point is "in front of" the pub.
Which just shows why other people are always a mystery to us all, even if you are not a toddler newly learning to use a knife and fork.
I still sympathise with my DS asking why we exclaimed that the smoke detector "went off" because we burned some toast. From his point of view, quite rightly, that was the moment the sound, and therefore the alarm, went ON.

Your DH is right imho, the knife is behind the fork.

You say:
But to me it’s in front of the fork because it’s further away. So if the knife and fork were in a race, then the knife would very much be winning.

I don’t agree with the race analogy because it depends on whether you think of your DS’s sitting position as being at the start or finish line of the race. Clearly you’re thinking of your son watching the knife and fork running away from him. If he were positioned at the finish line, however, and they were running towards him, the one in front would be the closer piece.

So for your analogy to work a ‘direction of travel’ has to be chosen that matches the one in your head. And as there is no direction of travel in reality, that’s a 50/50 random chance…running towards, running away.

From where your son is sitting the panda behind the rock is static. No random directions of movement for the brain to choose. It works much better to describe where the knife and fork actually are. No confusion 😁

Thank goodness for the picture. I'd have been lost without it! To me the knife in the pic is "in front", because my own front and back define the directions in relation to things I'm holding, wearing or using.

In practice I'd always hold the food with my fork while the knife operates further away from me, as in the diagram. I would say I'd tend to hold the "main" piece of food with the fork while cutting a smaller portion off to eat. I realise that means I then need to swap the fork from the main piece to the bite-size piece to put it into my mouth, so it doesn't necessarily make much sense!

I think it's behind the fork, because it is next to the back of the fork.

This is hilarious 😂

But you're both wrong! The knife is to the right of the fork (assuming fork in left and knife in right hand like a sane person), because that's how your arms/hands are aligned! Rotate your cutting angle by 90° and then you can both agree it's "beside" and go on with your lives 😂

I’m married to an American. Either of your ways is preferable to his, obviously.

I'd say in front because, to me, the fork is in front of me and the knife is further in front of that.

BUT.

I can see someone might have the view that the thing nearest you, the fork, is at the front, so something further away would be behind, like your rock/panda analogy.

I think you should call the whole thing off and LTB.

To me the knife in the pic is "in front", because my own front and back define the directions in relation to things I'm holding, wearing or using.

Really?

So if you’re sitting at your desk working on your computer, you’d see the screen as ‘in front’ and the keyboard part at the back, relative to each other?

Hmmm 😂

The whole point of using clockwise or anticlockwise is that it remains the same from different viewpoints whereas turn right or turn left varies. So you're both wrong.

But he didn't tell me to turn the thing I was holding clockwise or anticlockwise, he told me to turn it to the right! So he is still wrong. In fact, he's now doubly wrong. So I'm happy with that outcome!

I mean I love the picture but I have genuinely never thought about this in my life.

have you considered chopsticks?

Yup it's in front

It’s behind. It’s further away. It’s not closer and in front.