How To Hold A Knife

[diddlydo]

Why is it becoming increasingly common for people to hold their knife like a pencil? How do they actually cut anything like that? Were they not taught any table manners?

[albaqwerty]

digressing I know, my mother was a leftie, used to get her knuckles rapped Jeza.

[mccfluff]

my brother was the same jeza

[Mamyalynne]

If you are a very good boy, we shall see.

[Answerprancer]

I was brought up not to hold my knife 'a la plume'. Worse (IMO) is when a person props their knife and fork up on the edge of the plate with the butt ends on the table - yuck.

[tenrec]

Yep, us lefties have been persecuted through the ages.

[tenrec]

Fountain pens were fun.

[2sp_]

I started to learn to write with my left hand, broke my arm badly so had to carry on with my right. Now I write equally badly with either. Most other things I do with my left, but some things I do right handed.

It's all a bit confusing at times.

[Jeza]

Devil possessed it what the nuns called me. If you die you will go straight to hell. They wondered why I stopped going to church when I was old enough to make my own decisions.

[Mosaic]

I say diddly. Was the person gesturing rudely in a phallicly suggestive manner with the knife?
How can you be offended by the manner in which another person is enjoying their pie?
'Table manners' in the way of which set of spoons you use, whether you should tip your soup bowl in in which direction, and how you hold the implements is all part of the terrifying insecurity that was sold to the aspirant middle classes - very successfully if I may say so - by Mrs Isabella Beeton.
I am sorry to find you insecure. I hope time heals.

[FredPuli43]

"It's common" ! Now there's a word that gives the game away.

Or it might just be not conventional in Britain (or that part of it which thinks likes Hyacinth Bouquet) but standard practice in other cultures.

[mikey4444]

I think there is a connection here between holding your knife like a pencil and the growth of places like McDonalds.

You see, those kind of places didn't exist when I was growing up in the 50's and 60's. I'm not sure if "fast food" had even been invented over here in Britain. There was fish and chips and that was about all. So most eating was done sitting up at a table in the home, where good manners could be taught and monitored.

But increasingly places like McDonalds are being used for regular family meals, rather then eating properly at home. The last thing you need in McDonalds is a knife. I'm not sure if they have anyway.

Another change is the increasingly common habit of sitting on sofas, watching the telly, instead of using a dining room table. In the course of my work, I visit hundreds of homes every year and a lot of them don't even have a dining table and chairs, especially with poorer and uneducated families.

So is it any wonder that table manners are so bad these days ?

My poor Mum would revolve in her grave if she could see some of the slack behavior that passes for manners now.

[diddlydo]

Mosaic - I'm not insecure at all. I was just brought up properly as were my children.

[boxtops]

People do odd things with their forks too, I saw someone the other gripping it as if it were a dagger, and stabbing their food.

[sara3]

gosh, I think I may hold my knife like a pencil/fountain pen. my daughter (right-handed) uses her knife and fork the "wrong" way around.

I should probably banish us both to eat in the dog's kennel.

your level of snobbery beggars belief.

[magsmay]

diddlydo -you were brought up 'properly' because you were taught to hold your knife how a certain section of society deemed 'correct? I have witnessed people holding their knives how you would describe as 'properly' who had the table manners of a pig -and some 'a la plume' who were polite in their table manners meaning they chewed their food with their mouths closed and did not slurp. Surely this is more important?

[joko]

properly?

just because its the most common way does not make any other way wrong.

its just an old fashioned convention - not a rule - over the centuries, people have eaten and used cutlery in all sorts of ways.

i too think you are insecure, that you sneer at others over such petty things in order to make yourself feel better.

seriously, if that is the only way you can feel smug over others, the best thing you can think of to laud over others, then you mustn't have very much of true worth in your life to be proud of, and it is you with the issue, not them...

they are simply enjoying the food in their mouths...however it got there...

[erin-x]

My friend holds his knife like pencil... It annoys me so much!!

[mazie]

There are children dying from lack of food and we are discussing how one should hold a knife.....unbelievable. I personally, don't give a toss.

[MadMen]

Well, diddlydo, check this out. I don't even use a knife. Just a fork.

How common is that!

Jesus...

[erin-x]

I'm a leftie (now) and I hold my fork in my left hand and knife in my right.

My brother has always been left handed and does the same....