Talk:Fork etiquette

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To the author: Great article. :-) That's what I like about Wikipedia: these little pieces of culture and cultural differences that you won't find documented elsewhere. Simon A. 19:21, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 Zigzag method 1.1 Zigzag method in Poland considered unpolite 1.2 Prevalence in America 2 peas with honey 3 {{OR}} 4 Source? 5 Fork iin right hand as way to differentiate from english in colonial america

[edit] Zigzag method

Wonderful article. Who coined the term "zigzag"?

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I think this manner of eating is also done here in Canada as well. At least, I do something that approximates this, though my table manners are not exactly perfect. :) Can any other Canadians corroborate? --Saforrest 19:47, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)

Well, I'm Canadian, but I don't put the utensils down, I just eat with my fork in the left hand (and impale the food, not scoop it). Otherwise I might cut up a piece of meat into little pieces and eat with my right hand, not using the left at all (I did that as a kid, at least). Adam Bishop 19:52, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I, too, am Canadian, and I believe I typically eat the same way as Adam Bishop. If I do eat using the zigzag method, I think that I only make one cut at a time, not several. --Timc 03:37, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have noticed that a lot of "zig zag" eaters eat with hats on backward at the table and talk in grunts and monosyllables. Is this also socially significant?????

If you wish to make a comment of that sort, you can at least identify yourself. Nobody here is saying that those who don't use the zig-zag method have any negative European stereotype. BirdValiant 21:38, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

In England, it is also more common to hold the fork "upside down" and push the food onto the prongs of fork with the knife.

Eating technique varies with the thing being eaten. Some foods are more scoopable than stabbable. I never knew there was a technical term for this eating method though! Paul Tracy

It's been interesting coming to live in Canada from the UK. People say that eating the European way instead of 'zigzagging' actually is a more efficient way of eating, and also looks better. I am having considerable difficulty getting my 9 y o daughter to eat the 'correct' way.

The Miss Manners book Basic Training: Eating describes something similar to this article's zig-zag method as the standard American style, but says it isn't proper to cut more than one piece of food at once.--Trystan 00:25, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Now that would be inefficient. If I need to eat something that requires the need of a knife, like a steak or pork chop or something, I usually cut a narrow strip of the meat, and cut that up into four or five pieces, then proceed to put down the knife. Or I could cut up those pieces and keep the knife in the hand, eating with the left, or I could cut one at a time. Whatever I feel like. But cutting one small piece and then setting the knife down would be and look ridiculous, and I think, less proper. BirdValiant 21:38, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

In the words of Miss Manners, it is a "foolish notion to think that the rules of etiquette are intended to be either logical or efficient." The article should reflect what etiquette authorities say is proper, not what seems like the fastest way to eat. If there are conflicting authorities they should probably all be cited, but I only have to access to the one.--Trystan 21:51, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm just saying that I'm not going to cut and eat the pieces one by one just because of some crappy etiquette rule. Not that I don't conform to other etiquette rules. Just my personal opinion. BirdValiant 01:26, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Zigzag method in Poland considered unpolite

While I of course can not speak for every Pole here, but I'd like to point out that zigzag method is considered unpolite here in Poland. Zigzag method is permitted for very young children or in very non-formal circumtances. Przepla 18:30, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As "another" Pole, I can only confirm that, and I believe I am speaking for the vast majority of Poles. Eating anyhow else than employing the "European style" is considered absolutely boorish. I would have never thought anybody would consider eating using this "Zigzag method" in any circustances rather than very informal... I must have met only the most cultured Americans in my life... Bravada, talk - 01:52, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Prevalence in America

Do Americans generally eat like this? I seems like a lot of work, changing hands constantly? - Matthew238 03:13, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes they do. I've personally been doing it since I was a kid, and I'm from Australia.--Gene_poole 05:57, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

However, the food is not always eaten afterwards in a 'spoon-like manner'; it may also be impaled. Personally, I find myself eating with both methods, with fork in right hand and left hand somewhere else, and with the fork in left hand and knife in right. However, I don't use the 'hidden handle' method, although it may be temporarily in that position while cutting with the knife. I also cut the the food with the side of the fork (with left hand somewhere else) if the food is thin or tender enough to be cut without the aide of a knife. I'm from Wisconsin. BirdValiant 23:24, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] peas with honey

As a (British) child I had to ask at table if I may turn my fork over in order to scoop up food. This request was usually granted, albeit grudgingly. We were reminded of how "common" people ate (pronounced "et" in those days) by the rhyme: He eats his peas with honey He´s done it all his life It makes the peas taste funny But it keeps them on his knife.

[edit] {{OR}}

I was asked by Secular mind why I put {{OR}} (original research) on the article. It looks like most of the claims have been verified by people on this talk page. Perhaps {{unreferenced|date=August 2006}} would have been better, as there are no citations. I will replace {{OR}} with {{unreferenced|date=August 2006}}. --Midnightcomm 14:11, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

To some extend the following (cited from WP:OR might) apply

In some cases, where an article (1) makes descriptive claims the accuracy of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable adult without specialist knowledge, and (2) makes no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, or evaluative claims, a Wikipedia article may be based entirely on primary sources (examples would include apple pie or current events), but these are exceptions.

I'm a little bit worried that the "zigzag" method is a neologism, I found a web page using the same term [1], but there should be a more reputable source. Until such a source is provided American Style is probably more appropriate. Trystan seems to have access to Miss Manners' book Basic Training: Eating, which appearingly verifies the American Style. As I have personaly no access to that book I hesitate to add it as a source myself, it would be nice if Trystan could do that (maybe with page or chaperter). I will try to find a source for the European style (probably in German). Secular mind 18:09, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

apparently "Zigzagging" it was coined by Emily Post

I especially enjoy those "16th century American colonists". Many, many early (seventeenth-century of course) estate inventories have been published: forks were not rarities. The "refinement" of switching hands was invented after c. 1820, perhaps even after the Civil War, part of the newly elaborated American genteel etiquette of the Gilded Age: "gate-keeping devices to serve the cause of social exclusivity" (Hemphill p 131). In the dramatic explosion of U.S. etiquette manuals published after 1820, I wonder whether you'd find "switching" described before c. 1870. Emily Thornwell, The Lady's Guide to Perfect Gentility (1856) was reprinted by the Huntington Library in 1979: it might throw some light on this dimly-perceived subject. Or, better, C. Dallett Hemphill's Bowing to Necessities: A History of Manners in America, 1620-1860 (Oxford University Press, 1995). Is there anything in Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners (1939; tr. 1978)? Anything I might add to this hopelessly innocent and comic article would surely be cried down as "original research". I offer these hints for anyone willing to struggle uphill. This is not on my Watchlist. --Wetman 09:07, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Source?

Here is a site the authors of this site should have a look at: [2]. Just a suggestion and FYI: both the Euro continental method and the Zig-Zag method are used in the US, with the former being depending on envrionment seen as more appropriate in elegant settings. To be honest I have a spent a large part of my life in the US where I currently life and zig-zagging in a nice resturant is not that common. But this article shouldn't be based on people's experiences. Both methods are used in the US, as my research indicates. Please lets add some sources. Signature^brendel 07:27, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fork iin right hand as way to differentiate from english in colonial america

I read somewhere the fork in the right hand was a way to differentiate from the English in colonial American pubs? But can not find any reference to this.