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’

Where does the panda come into any of this?

I don’t understand how people are agreeing with you! It seems totally obvious to me that the knife is behind the fork and the panda would be hiding behind the rock. If you’re playing hide and seek with your son, surely you hide behind a tree, so that the tree is closer to your son and he sees the tree rather than you. We don’t hide in front of things.

If you were looking at two books, with the red one nearer to you and the blue one farther away from you, surely you’d say the blue one is behind the red one, wouldn't you?

Unless they are moving away from you, the "direction of travel" is towards your eyes - or, in the case of the food, your son's mouth. The fork/red book is closer, so it’s in front.

Let me chuck this into the mix. I asked dh how many bits of toast he wanted, a couple he said, so again I asked how many. He insisted a couple was 2, I said it's a non definitive answer, could be 2 or 3 for example, be more specific. A definitive answer re the couple question would be "a married couple" but couple is not necessarily 2.
It got quite heated and I took to Facebook to debate it. Eventually I put a quote from the dictionary.

couple/ˈkʌpl/A couple is defined as two people who are married, in a romantic relationship, or paired together. It also refers to two items of the same kind, or an indefinite small number (a few), such as "a couple of days". As a verb, it means to connect, join, or pair things together.

And by the way, you're right, the knife is in front of the fork!

How many bits in a slice?

That was another debate held by a friend of mine!

I would say the knife is 100% in front of the fork because you are holding both of them. That is why your husband's panda and rock analogy does not work. These are not distant objects; they are things you are holding and the perspective is relative to your hands and arms.

If you held your right hand out arm fully extended and your left hand behind it, your right hand is in front. Just as someone standing in a line is in front of you.

It is a very weird analysis to think of the knife being behind the fork as if they are disconnected distant objects.

The fact you are holding them in your hands and their proximity to you means that the perspective is the same as if you were at the back of a line of people looking forwards. You are right and your husband is wrong. SO wrong.

How can it not be clockwise???

Anyway OP, the knife and fork are next to each other - in your diagram and in real life - so you're both wrong.

This is reminding me of my husband and I roaring at each other in the street because he said it's a cross a street, so I cross the street but he meant we go to the street parallel to us. Add to the confusion there was a parade on, people everywhere and we were trying to keep hold of the kids.

Huh? How can it be anticlockwise?

It's all in the perspective!

It's looking at it from above versus standing at 12 o'clock and looking towards the centre.

The diagram is right. How else would one eat?

We are still struggling with getting our daughters to ear correctly and they are 14 and 11…

I don't know! I was team clockwise. I've been trying to understand his pov but genuinely can't. I think I just have to accept that I married a dud. But it's ok, at least he's pretty.

You're both right

The knife is behind the fork because its positioned on the backside of the fork so to speak and its also behind the fork as you look at it from where you are in front of it.

But its also in front of the fork 'moving forward' so to speak, if they were driving across the table, the knife would be in front with the fork behind and you behind that.

Its all a matter of perspective

You would perhaps (see below) but the person behind you, would see the knife behind you

And if the tines were your head, you would be head down surely, stuck in the floor, upside down, facing toward the eater. The knife would be behind you because it would be to your back

If its any help we have massive rows at roundabouts because he thinks a straight on is a right turn or vice versa

AND he thinks 'red sky at night, shepherds delight' means that its going to rain and the shepherd is happy that he has had an advance warning of rain

He's thinking of it from his point of view, not your child's. You are seeing and explaining it from your child's point of view so your child can understand it.

You're right, he's wrong.

The only way clockwise to you was not right to him is if he was positioned to the reverse of/underneath it. (Carefully not using back or front! 😂)

Has he never heard 'right tightly, lefty loosey'?!

I’m not sure why this is so complicated - ‘in front of’ and ‘behind’ are subjective and entirely depend on the viewpoint from which the two objects are being observed.

imagine a cylindrical column in the middle of a field, with a dog sitting a foot away from it and a ring of observers around the column ten feet away. Depending on the point of view of each observer, they may perceive the dog as in front of the column, behind the column, to the left of the column, to the right of the column or a combination of the above. The dog and the column don’t move or change their position relative to each other in any way - what creates the ‘behind’ or the ‘in front of’ is purely the position of the observer and the observers are all correct - there is no ‘right’ answer.

So the starting point is that behind and in front of depend on a point from which the relationship between the objects is observed or measured.

So if you’re instructing someone in the use of a knife and fork, use the preposition of place which will show what the learner will see i.e. place the knife behind the fork. The fact that someone else sees a different spatial layout from their position is irrelevant.

and what the fork or knife are doing is also irrelevant, much like the direction the dog is looking is irrelevant.

This thread makes me happy.

Yes! I tried using "righty tighty, lefty loosey" logic on him but he refused to acknowledge that the same directions applied in this instance.

Honestly, I think he might be broken. I might see if he's still under warranty.

Glad you lot agree with me though, it's been very reassuring!

You are right. Any chance your husband was sitting opposite your child so he was looking from a different angle.

This thread is making me feel I’m losing my grip on reality!

I'm Welsh and was well in to adulthood when I learned a couple actually meant two, we always used it to mean a few. I had a conversation with an English colleague and I said a couple could mean 2, 3 or 4. He said my past relationships must have been interesting. 😅

This! As someone earlier said with the shield and sword analogy, you wouldn't say "put the sword behind the shield" when you're holding them because that wouldn't be right, so it's the same with the knife and fork.