Poll: Knives & Forks, left hand vs right hand

How do you hold your knife and fork?

  • Right handed: fork in left hand, knife in right hand

    Votes: 162 53.3%

  • Right handed: knife in left hand, fork in right hand

    Votes: 85 28.0%

  • Left handed: fork in left hand, knife in right hand

    Votes: 44 14.5%

  • Left handed: knife in left hand, fork in right hand

    Votes: 3 1.0%

  • Other (?): please specify

    Votes: 10 3.3%
  • Total voters
    304
Fork in left, knife in right is the correct way regardless of if you're right or left handed. Are children not taught this any more?
 
At time of posting it's nice to see there are 47 other people on this forum who hold their knife and fork correctly.
 
Anyone who doesn't use a knife in their dominant hand, has never experienced a steak so touch you need every ounce of strength to slice it.

Would you wield a sword in your weaker hand? Heck no. Unless your dominant wrist needed some down time.
 
cheesyboy said:
I think this theory ignores that cutting and eating is a two-handed process. You start learning cutlery with just a fork as your food gets cut up for you.

I mean, if I'm trimming or hacking at stuff in the garden, I'll do the cutting with my right hand, but I'll pick the bits up with my left. Same with eating - the cutting is the technical bit, as pronging bits of food is hardly difficult.

It's more natural to have the fork in your right, yes, but it's not more effective nor efficient
Click to expand...



Pronging food isn't difficult at all, no, but balancing peas on a fork and guiding them safely to the mouth requires more dexterity than cutting any piece of food does. Indeed, most right handed people will switch to use a fork in their right hand if only using that utensil. Lefties mostly keep their same hand regardless.

Also, it's just a bit of fun, but interestingly the statistics of the poll do support my natural left handed fork theory for left handers.


  1. Right handed: fork in left hand, knife in right hand
    105 vote(s)
    56.8%

  2. Right handed: knife in left hand, fork in right hand
    50 vote(s)
    27.0%

  3. Left handed: fork in left hand, knife in right hand
    23 vote(s)
    12.4%

  4. Left handed: knife in left hand, fork in right hand
    1 vote(s)
    0.5%

  5. Other (?): please specify
    6 vote(s)
    3.2%



Just look how many right handers use their fork right handed compared to the lefties, half as many as use it the 'correct' left way. It definitely supports my fork being the dominant hand theory.

Only 1 left hander of 23 uses their fork in their right, with almost 100% of lefties using a fork in their left hand. A much lower percentage of righties do, with many preferring their dominant right hand for the fork.
 
Well, that's one way of putting it, heh. But I also think prolonged use of the fork in the non dominant hand might actually improve overall dexterity with the off hand to the point it feels natural as well.

I had to learn to use the Wii remote pointer in my right hand which I hated at first, but I did get used to eventually and I think it improved my dexterity with my right hand subsequently.

There's no doubt though from personal experience that some right handers have to be told to use their forks left handed, it doesn't just come naturally for everyone. Now that those types of table manners are getting outdated, and not getting told off as kids, I suspect we'll see a lot more right handers using their forks in their right had going forward.
 
PC777 said:
I had to learn to use the Wii remote pointer in my right hand which I hated at first, but I did get used to eventually and I think it improved my dexterity with my right hand subsequently.
Click to expand...
An interesting tangent: on the Wii version of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, the Wiimote was set up so the sword was in the right hand and most players would be comfortable swinging it. The graphics followed suit. BUT Link is historically left handed so technically this was wrong.

The GameCube edition didn't have a Wiimote so Link was left-handed. They actually flipped the entire world map in the process of swapping loads of elements of the game over!
 
FoxEye said:
Anyone who doesn't use a knife in their dominant hand, has never experienced a steak so touch you need every ounce of strength to slice it.

Would you wield a sword in your weaker hand? Heck no. Unless your dominant wrist needed some down time.
Click to expand...

A steak that is that tough to cut probably isn't particularly eatable anyhow. I usually find if they are like that you just chew and chew and never progress to something that you can digest anyhow.
 
Can only think of 3 things I do with my left, including writing but do everything else with my right.

Hold fork in right hand and knife with left and from glancing at the poll I can see that makes me a weirdo. :D
 
It's never even crossed my mind that you wouldn't have your knife in your right hand and fork in the left, for a right handed person. I can honestly say i'm not aware of seeing anyone with their knife in the left.

But, it did strike me the other day when I went to a Thai and the only cutlery was a spoon and fork, that I had unconsciously put the fork in my right and the spoon in my left...weird
 
I voted for right-handed, fork in left hand, knife in right hand. It's funny how different everyone is, when I played football my dominant foot was right, I play golf right-handed, write right-handed but used to play roller/ice hockey left-handed.
 
LuckyBenski said:
An interesting tangent: on the Wii version of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, the Wiimote was set up so the sword was in the right hand and most players would be comfortable swinging it. The graphics followed suit. BUT Link is historically left handed so technically this was wrong.

The GameCube edition didn't have a Wiimote so Link was left-handed. They actually flipped the entire world map in the process of swapping loads of elements of the game over!
Click to expand...


Yeah I loved that aspect of it, almost got the GC version of it because of that, and Link was always left handed due to creator Shigeru Miyamoto being left handed as well.

He also may or may not have helped popularise the standard of direction controls left, buttons right due to being left handed himself. Plenty of arcade machines and joysticks used the opposite Right hand controls, left hand buttons config. Donkey Kong arcade and the Nes did a lot to make the left directions way the standard. Another thing I'm thankful for as I couldn't do it the opposite way. Used to have to cross my arms on old right directions config arcades.
 
I always understood right hand knife, left hand fork, fork pointing 'down' to be the 'correct' traditional dining etiquette in the UK
 
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