Maura goes on to say, "With regards specifically to dining etiquette, that area has been changing right along side all of the lifestyle changes and technological advances in our world. It is believed forks were first introduced in the Middle East and Africa. Being more nomadic people, they chose not to use the fork necessarily to eat with, but more as a serving utensil. Even in the most primitive tribes in Africa or South America, you will find that children are taught very hygienic and very polite ways of eating their food. They use their right hands to eat with. The right hand is considered to be 'the clean hand'. They use no more than two or three fingers to hold the food. The food is put into the mouth without licking those fingers and without those fingers entering the mouth. Since they do a lot of communal dipping, this manner of dining is very hygienic and a lot of diseases, viruses or illnesses aren't spread easily. On the other hand, the Chinese and Japanese opted for chopsticks. They decided they didn't want any weapons in the room when eating, as people might feel threatened. When Europeans began navigating the globe trying to discover new places and new sailing routes to find gold, spices, silks, etc., most were eating with knives and with their hands, in a very unhygienic manner. Europeans soon developed a reputation as 'barbarians who ate with their swords' to those they encountered on their travels. Over time, it became obvious that for European men to appear more civilized to the rest of the world, they had to develop a more socially acceptable style of dining. Chopsticks wouldn't really work with the foods that they were eating, and they already had been eating with their hands, though they hadn't really uniformly mastered a hygienic approach. After gaining some popularity in Italy, forks slowly caught on, knives with blunt ends were more common place at the dining table and with the invention of silver plating in the mid 1800s utensils suddenly became available to the masses in the U.S. and Europe."
Even though small things have changed in the last century, the basic rules of good manners remain untouched. As Maura mentions, the rules that have been altered the most are usually due to the advancements in technology and lifestyles that have been introduced along the way. Even though we, as a society, adjust in many ways to our new surroundings, it is true that "Good manners never go out of style."
