Post #4307085

2026-08-01 06:42 UTC

I thought everyone knew this but .... Neurodivergent story time! In the era of French aristocracy, American culture was just starting to get posh. And Americans (colonists then citizens) at the time decided great high class table manners meant copying high French fashion. So they adopted this weird "zig zag" method of eating where we only eat with the fork in our right hands facing up like you'd scoop food, but also only use the knife in our right hands. So every time you cut something you set the fork down and switch hands, then switch back. We can't eat with a fork in our left hand (if we were raised with strict table manners that don't care about handedness). America did that big revolution and our big freedom thing and never switched back. The rest of the world moved on to knife in the right hand, fork in the left turned downward whilst cutting stuff. You can always tell an American while eating by how we use the knife and fork. It's how they caught spies in WWII. Turns out it is incredibly hard to relearn XD

Replies (5)

@tanyakaroli@expressional.social 2026-08-01 07:07

@hacks4pancakes@infosec.exchange oh, interesting, I didn’t know it was supposed to be good table manners in the US! I have watched American colleagues eat like that and wondered why they make it so complicated? 😅 But I can understand how difficult it must be to unlearn. It’s very much muscle memory.

Open ##4307084
@sashag@anarres.family 2026-08-01 07:22

@hacks4pancakes@infosec.exchange I might not have learned *strict* table manners, but I learned that the fork should point in a 90° angle from the hand held only with the first few fingers, like holding a pen. If it is linear with the arm and maybe even held with all fingers (goddess! 😱) that's terrible 🙃 But I also never learned to switch knife and fork. So I "eat like a left-handed person" (surprise, I'm partially ambidextrous). Additional rules included things like: never cut potatoes (or fries/chips) with a knife, break them with the fork, never put used cutlery back on the table. Oh, and never put your hands under the table, but lift the arm going to the mouth from the table. What I read somewhere about US use of cutlery was, that the standard way was to cut everything (like meat) at the beginning, then put the knife down and eat with the fork in the right hand, left hand on your left tigh. Some years later I saw think in reality and it was fascinating. I'm terrible at using chopsticks though. My ADHD problem with micromovements makes it hard to control my fingers like I need to. Similar to hand writing: I can write, but it looks always irregular and every time I write the same sentence it looks irregular in a different way.

Open ##4307453
@not_a_label@toot.lgbt 2026-08-01 08:11

@hacks4pancakes@infosec.exchange well I’ve learnt something today! Having lived & worked in the US years ago I was accustomed to the strange looks when using a fork in the left hand but never knew the history behind it all… I spent long enough there that I’m now ambiforkstrous

Open ##4309261
@bradr@infosec.exchange 2026-08-01 07:06

@hacks4pancakes@infosec.exchange My family moved from California to Bangkok when I was a kid, and I was fascinated that everyone there used the same familiar forks and spoons, but in a completely different way (no cross, and no table knives). Being able to flip between silverware eating styles is like being bilingual. Surprisingly easy for kids, surprisingly hard for adults. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn26usXYkKQ

Open ##4311831
@jscholes@dragonscave.space 2026-08-01 13:44

@hacks4pancakes@infosec.exchange @FreakyFwoof@universeodon.com I may be misunderstanding the description here but if you put the fork down to use the knife, how do you hold the thing you're cutting in place?

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