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’

Nobody is sitting opposite 😅

That makes it even less logical to talk about the thing closer to the child to be "behind" the thing farther from the child, then.

I think we need to do this “Ghostbusters” style - do not cross the streams!
whichever hand you hold your knife and fork in is irrelevant - you don’t cross them over when you cut!

I don’t think it is actually this simple.

Complete both of the following tasks assuming the same perspective of the instructor or yourself.
If I’m instructing you in a yoga pose and I say put your right hand in front of your left - where would it be?
Now imagine if my water bottle is on the ground in front of you and I tell you to put your water bottle behind my water bottle - where would you put it?

I think (but maybe I’m wrong!) that in both cases you would have put the object (your right hand or the water bottle) further away from your body despite being given the opposite preposition in the instruction.

The question, I think, is whether you view the knife and fork as ‘part of you’ because you’re holding them or separate objects.

But nobody said that.

DH said the thing farther away from the child (the knife) was behind the fork. It’s on the far side of the fork.

OP didn’t use the word behind at all.

OK, fair enough, I’ll rephrase. I agree with DH. The fork is in front of the knife. The item closer when seen from the viewer's physical or imagined perspective or "point of view" is the one in front. (This covers the case of the sword and the shield: the sword is in front because it is being considered from the point of view of the enemy, the thing the enemy would encounter first.)

Stop imagining other people’s perspectives 😅
First it was someone seated at the opposite side of the table.
Now it’s ‘the enemy’!

From the perspective of the person holding the sword, the sword is in front if it is farther away from the body. (Likewise, if you put one foot in front of the other you are moving forwards not moving backwards!)

The complication here is that we label things differently if they are on a desk or plate etc. Then the object ‘in front’ is the one closer to your body.

Here the cutlery is being held but also being used on a plate. So the usual labelling systems (in front, behind) clash a bit.

You’re either crazy or a bored journo. Either way, wtaf.

I get what you mean, but also what your DS is saying. The front to him maybe means the bit you look at if you just hold it in front of you, the back would be the bit that you lay on the table. If you said "in front" to me I would do what you are suggesting, but I can see why he sees it his way.
Kind of like how the "fast" lane on the motorway to me is what you would call the outside lane as it's the furthest out from the slip road, but others sometimes say it's the inside lane (and I have no idea which way round is correct).