submitted 17 hours ago by als@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/wikipedia@lemmy.world

7 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Fixed phrase of two or more conventionally joined words

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] Whelks_chance@lemmy.world 5 points 15 hours ago

In the UK it's always knife and fork, but I'm sure I've heard Americans say fork and knife. I may be wrong.

[-] Drusas@fedia.io 0 points 5 hours ago

It is usually "fork and knife" in the US.

[-] idiomaddict@lemmy.world 4 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

I’m from the US and I say fork and knife more often, but both work.

Edit: now that I think of it, my mother and grandmother only said “knife and fork.” Maybe it’s slowly becoming uncoupled in American English

[-] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 2 points 12 hours ago

In the lyrics to the Beatles’ song Piggies, there’s the line “clutching forks and knives”. Is that just an Americanism they picked up?

this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2026

81 points (100.0% liked)

Wikipedia

5135 readers

161 users here now

A place to share interesting articles from Wikipedia.

Rules:

Only links to Wikipedia permitted
Please stick to the format "Article Title (other descriptive text/editorialization)"
Tick the NSFW box for submissions with inappropriate thumbnails
On Casual Tuesdays, we allow submissions from wikis other than Wikipedia.

Recommended:

Use the search box to see if someone has previously submitted an article. Some apps will also notify you if you are resubmitting an article previously shared on Lemmy.

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS