Have you ever noticed
How you do certain things a certain way, but to do it another way seems awkward?
An example: when I put on my shoes I always put the right shoe on first, then the left.
Mrs. Gramps puts her shoe on the left foot and then the right.
But if I try to put my left shoe on first, I really have to think it through. It does not seem right.
Mrs Gramps says it's the same with her, she cannot put on her right shoe first and not feel awkward.
Do you have similar habits you steps you always do one way but to do it another way caused some unease?
Or if there is something other people always seem to do only one way? Yet there are other ways the same activity can also be done.
An example: when I put on my shoes I always put the right shoe on first, then the left.
Mrs. Gramps puts her shoe on the left foot and then the right.
But if I try to put my left shoe on first, I really have to think it through. It does not seem right.
Mrs Gramps says it's the same with her, she cannot put on her right shoe first and not feel awkward.
Do you have similar habits you steps you always do one way but to do it another way caused some unease?
Or if there is something other people always seem to do only one way? Yet there are other ways the same activity can also be done.
Comments
I remember watching her late Majesty doing an Official Opening, and thinking I'd never seen such economy of movement employed in unveiling a plaque. I'm sure that's what it comes down to. Repeating actions you've done innumerable times before: you cannot vary or omit, so choreograph them into a routine, spending as little time and thought as possible.
While I am at it, why are the buttons on a men's shirt on the right side, while the buttons on a woman's blouse on the left side?
Doublethink, Admin
I get onto a bicycle from the left hand side, because (in the UK) that's the kerb side.
I imagine I usually do it one way round, because I usually don't think about my shoes at all, so I assume I default to the same order. I know I have put shoes on in both orders recently, and neither ordering felt especially awkward.
For socks, I tend to put the left one on first, which feels like a right hand dominant thing. Jackets are I think left sleeve first, probably for the same reason.
Possible answers on buttons:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mens-shirts-button-on-the-right-why-do-womens-button-on-the-left-180957361/
When I broke a bone in my left hand everything took much longer, but it would have taken even longer if it had been my right hand.
If we had to think about every little movement we’d never get anything done.
Yes, I have heard the servant theory before, but as the article begins, it says nobody really knows.
Same in our house. And I can't bear to watch Mrs Vole doing vegetables slowly with a short knife and I have to take over with a quick efficient long knife.
A Charles Williams' quote is apposite:
"Action, after all, is a very difficult thing. The normal acts of our lives are either habitual or compulsory". (The English Poetic Mind, p.72).
I, along with three friends, were eating a meal with some Shipmates on the Isle of Man. Before our meal, our hosts had instructed their daughter to watch us eat and was fascinated to see us pass our forks from one hand to the other!
Since we four were all raised in the US, we had no idea that people handle forks and knives differently!
It seems very odd to us. Be constantly swapping every bite to cut the next one.
That said, if I’m eating something like steak, my fork sometimes stays in my left hand.
In the UK children are or used to be taught not to put their elbows on the table, or their hands, whereas in France they are taught to hold them as fists on the table when not in use for holding cutlery. Is this still the case @la vie en rouge ?
Or in my case (left-handed in the UK), fork is always in the left hand. I don't fancy trying to put something with points on near my face with my non-dominant hand! I do have enough control to cut cooked food with the right hand.
Otherwise how can you get the butter to run down to your elbows?
Sauce, butter or anything else getting on my hands is bad. It getting any further would totally freak me out. Those spiky corn eating things are absolutely required for me.
What! That's like pork without crackling, or tomatoes without salt.
I've never heard of this, but French table manners have changed in the last couple of decades. The old fashioned way is to cut your food up then hold your fork in your right hand and a bit of bread in your left for pushing with. Younger French people eat less bread than their parents and grandparents, so mostly use their implements the same way as the British.
And I don’t salt tomatoes either—partly because I rarely salt anything at the table, and partly because I never eat raw tomatoes unless politeness compels it.
Blasphemer!
Eh? Salt on tomatoes? I have never put salt on any salad item. Would ruin the taste completely!
Totally allowable. If I ever make anything with a tomato sauce I add a good pinch of sugar to offset the acidity.
My long knives have 8 inch (20 cm) blades. The short ones come in varying lengths.
I find sharp blades safer than the less sharp ones.
Getting good tomatoes was all I needed.
I need to read that. I love Charles Williams!!
Do what I do—cut the corn off with a knife and fork!
(I also eat chicken with bones—fried or otherwise—with two forks, one to hold it down, one to tear the meat off with.)
(I had pizza tonight and just cut the slice up so I could eat it with a fork.)
I avoid salt, though it’s already in everything.
And yes, electric knife sharpener a must.
I need to have tea again – I just remembered that one of the things I would do with tea and cookies would be to take a fragment of cookie and put it in the teaspoon and dip it into the tea and then eat it that way. Just starts to crumble as you eat it… 🥰
Remember, I am only one generation from the time and place where the meat you ate, you'd raised and killed.