Dear Etiquetteer:
I’m left-handed and, at casual mealtimes with Lefty Husband, I tend to put our drinking glasses on the left side of the plate, so that we’re not reaching across the plate and, ugh, potentially dragging a shirt cuff through the hollandaise sauce. Is it Perfectly Proper when having a dinner party to reverse placement of the drinking accoutrements for our sinister guests?
I don’t feel that I need to reverse placement of the flatware, however, as it’s not difficult to pick up the given utensils, use them as needed and place them on the left edge of the plate. I think this
is a Perfectly Proper course, no? One doesn’t put soiled utensils back on the tablecloths only to stain the hosts’ linen.
Any insights are appreciated.
Dear Sinister:
Etiquetteer must commend you both for your thoughtfulness toward your guests, and for your insouciant use of the word sinister*. Now that left-handedness is no longer considered Inherently Evil, we forget that meaning of the word. Its opposite in the world of heraldry is dexter.
But Etiquetteer cannot agree that individualized place settings can be Perfectly Proper. Consistency is a virtue; people know where to find their glasses at a properly set table and will be thrown for a loop with your innovation, even if it is intended to be more convenient. And aside from having to ask people which hand they use for what purposes before they arrive (along with questions about dietary issues), you risk confusion when you seat a dexter guest on the sinister side of a sinister guest, clumping all their glasses together between them. You also sacrifice an element of beauty in a well-set table, too: its uniformity.
Etiquetteer has confidence in all Left-Handed Diners that they can navigate a properly laid table without undue catastrophe. What this really means is no trailing sleeves, shawls, or charm bracelets to get in the way — and button up that cuff while you’re at it.
Etiquetteer wishes you many accident-free meals with congenial company of all dexterities.
*The Bar Sinister was once a common expression to indicate that one’s parents weren’t married to each other at the time of one’s birth. Etiquetteer fails to understand why that circumstance should be considered evil, having known very many people “born on the right side of the blanket” who were Absolutely Awful. Etiquetteer has always loved that, in the novel Auntie Mame, one of the previous identities of Mame’s Club Continentale was called Belle’s Bar Sinister.