> the forks have a place so that you can feel confident in what you're doing no matter whose house you sit down in Once I learned (some of) the actual rules ar

> the forks have a place so that you can feel confident in what you're doing no matter whose house you sit down in Once I learned (some of) the actual rules around dinner settings, that sort of etiquette made far more sense to me. Using dinner forks isn't hard, even in high class settings: you start from the furthest-out fork and move in. But setting them requires knowing what you're doing so that your guests don't need to know - the goal of politeness being that you ensure no one else is ill at ease.