How do you use a fork and knife?

[briv1016]

I've been called weird because I am right handed and hold my knife in my left hand and my fork in my right. Simply cut, insert and repeat.

This just seemed natural to me until my grandmother asked if I was left handed at Thanksgiving dinner for doing this. I was actually shocked when I was told that most right handed Americans hold there fork in there left hand, cut with there right and then switch hands and insert the food with the right hand. I guess I just never noticed.

How do DUers use a fork and knife?

[malta blue]

1. cut with right but don't switch. nt

[ElsewheresDaughter]

15. same with me and I never turn the fork rightside up

[Crabby Appleton]

26. Me too. nt

[ScreamingMeemie]

2. I cut everything up with the knife in my right hand and then I put the

knife down (heehehe,"Put the knife down, MrsG") and pick up the fork with my right to eat.

[DS1]

22. I notice that's an American thing

seems slow, to me

[Kutjara]

25. Yes it is. I was brought up in the UK,...

...and nobody eats like that. The method generally considered "polite" in Europe keeps the fork in the left and the knife in the right at all times.

I've heard the American method explained by reference to frontier hygiene, where the left hand was used for toilet duties and running water was at a premium, so settlers were understandably reluctant to bring that hand close to the mouth, but I suspect this is more apocryphal than real.

[MrScorpio]

3. Fork right, cut left myself (Rightie)

I don't know who those other people are either

[DarkTirade]

4. I'm pretty close to ambidextrous

but I was raised in a family that, albiet poor, seems to be a big fan of the 'money doesn't buy class' mindset, so they taught us how to use silverware 'properly'. So I'll normally hold my fork in my right hand, then switch to cut. However, I use my near ambidextrousness as an excuse not to switch back right away so I can shovel a few newly cut things in my mouth with my fork in my left hand. :P

[flvegan]

5. Without mercy!!!

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. Properly, but with a subtle overtone of scornful disquiet and mephitic jejuneness

:P

Seriously, though - I tend toward the European fashion of knife in one hand and fork in the other, and not switch hands after cutting (I'm right handed, and hold the knife in my right hand). Americans tend to do the fork switching as you do. If I am eating something that only needs a fork and no knife, then I tend to hold the fork in my right hand. I also use chopsticks with my right hand.

And yes, it is standard to have the knife hand be one's significant hand. But, you know, go with what works - the hand you use isn't important; what's important is whether you hold it properly (using your fork and first finger), or like an animal (wrapping all your fingers around the handle).

[fizzgig]

12. i eat the same way and get a lot of weird looks

people who hold their utensils improperly is one of my biggest pet peeves. it makes me want to smack the crap out of their parents for not teaching them proper table manners.

[Rabrrrrrr]

16. And it seems that table manners stopped being taught about twenty years ago.

I've done work with children and teens for 25 or so years, including eating lots of meals together (at camps and such) and every year it seems that more and more kids are absolutely clueless about how to hold silverware properly, how to cut their food properly, and how to eat properly.

And part of what bothers me so much about holding silverware improperly isn't the elitist aspect of it - it's the physics aspect. The reason we have a proper way to hold silverware is because that way best utilizes physics to our advantage. So just from a practical, engineering, efficiency standpoint, one should hold silverware correctly.

I see so much more fisting of handles and other bizarre methods of holding now than I ever saw before, except amongst older farmer types and uneducated rural folk.

And, sadly, the same goes for pens and pencils - but then, they're not teaching penmanship any more, so why should anyone bother to learn how to hold one?

[Inchworm]

7. fork? knife?

:wtf:

:hi:

[Fox Mulder]

8. I cut everything with my left hand and I don't switch.

I can do some things with my left hand, and I can do others with my right hand. :)

[LostInAnomie]

9. Well, aren't you smug in all your finery!?

My broke ass can't afford those "rich man's" utensils!

[Redstone]

10. Same here. Except I don't hold the fork upside down like Europeans do.

I never understood that.

(Though I do put the knife down while chewing, to slow things down a little bit. Otherwise Ieat too fast.

Redstone

[Twillig]

11. With my forkin' hands..

ba dum bum!

[hobbit709]

13. Well enough not to slice or poke myself.

[madeline_con]

14. I like to do the British thing...

or at least it's how Brits on TV eat. Fork in the left, upside down, knife in the right. It just seems natural.

[leeroysphitz]

17. A knife and a fork. A bottle and a cork.

That's the way you spell New York!

[NewEnglandGirl]

18. I'm right handed

and I cut with the right, hold the fork in my left and switch over to that most of the time. Sometimes I don't switch. I have a friend who eats all of one thing on her plate before going onto the next. I guess her eating style is less complicated! :)

[Skittles]

19. fork stays upside-down in my left hand

knife stays in my right

[RebelOne]

20. Well, I am left-handed

and I hold my fork in my left hand and the knife in my right.

[grasswire]

21. worse yet, do you lean on the table with one arm while eating?

I'm seeing more and more of that atrocious gaffe. It's a real class marker IMO although I know a couple of people who grew up in old monied homes who do it. It's almost as bad as not using a coaster on wood furniture.

[TommyO]

23. I use mine the same way you do.

It's more logical to do it this way, "proper" use of the utensils be damned!

[Rambis]

24. fork left, knife right, fork upside down

Prefer to eat this...