Cut and switch: UK turns to American-style table manners

Traditional British table manners could be dying out among the younger generation.

A new survey has found one in five under 30s have adopted the American 'cut and switch' method, in which diners cut their food before putting the knife down and moving the fork from the left hand to the right hand when eating.

The 'European style' of eating is more common among older Brits, with nearly 90 per cent sticking to the traditional way of holding cutlery; keeping the fork in the left hand and the knife in the right.

Speaking to the MailOnline, Sam Taylor, editor of The Lady, blamed mobile phones for the shift in dining habits.

She said: "The young are quite lazy, particularly in the way they go through meals with their head bowed over their telephones.

"The reason they are using one hand and the switch method is that they are using their other hand to work their mobile. They are rather bad dinner guests. It shows they didn't eat with their parents very much. If they had, they would have been rapped over the knuckles for not holding their cutlery correctly."