Subject: Re: using knives and forks

From: [email-masked] (Brian Zimmerman)
Date: 27 Sep 1993 07:25:16 -0500

-I just spent the last 10 days in Europe (Budapest actually) and being
-bored at breakfast sometimes (well, not bored, but...) I was watching
   <snip>
-for a newbie! It's just kind of fresh in my mind being back less than
-a week.)
-
-One indecorous behavior the American style does lead to are clumsy
-attempts at cutting one's food with their fork. Sometimes this works
-fine, with things like potato dishes where the pieces are just a
-little large to put in one's mouth and the fork goes right thru the
-pieces without any hesitation.
   <more snipping>
-
I was told that in Germany it is considered quite poor practice to use
a knife on a potatoe (cooked and on your plate, of any style).  I just
accepted it as proper manners for the country, but the explanation sounded
like (and I am far from fluent) using a knife on a potatoe was the use of
outrageous force on something so defenseless.  Undoubtably an idiom, but
this seems like the right time and place to ask for further clarification.

Also, I'm curious about the idiom(s) associated with it.  Can anyone shed
some light on this?

Brian Zimmerman [[email-masked]]    | "If a little knowledge is dangerous,
Pulse Communications Inc., a division |  where is the man who has so much as
of Hubbell (not the telescope)        |  to be out of danger?"
All opinions are my own, none other   |         -Thomas Henry Huxley, 1877