I remember reading somewhere that the reason table knives have rounded points on them is because some pope or king was enraged to see guests at his dinner table picking their teeth with them. He then decreed that all table knives would have rounded points on them to make them useless as toothpicks. Not having one’s elbows on the table while eating supposedly came about the same way. I’m wondering how many of our current customs/manners are descended from such things. Seems a little silly to me that we’re following something which was started not because it makes sense, but because some long forgotten important official got annoyed with one of our ancestors.
The way people ate in those days would make Miss Manners slit her own throat in horror.
Ettiquette manuals of the time had to urge people not to wipe their teeth with the table cloth, not to scratch their crotch or pick their nose and then reach into the common dish, not to belch or fart, to turn their heads when sneezing, not to spit unwanted food out of their mouths back into the common dish, and, last but not least, not to pick their teeth at the table.
I’ve heard the story that King So-And-So rounded the edges of butter knives to prevent tooth picking, but I’m not sure if it’s true, or just apochryphal. Remember that in early days, people carried their OWN knives to the table. They would eat with the knife the same way we would eat with a fork today. (Forks didn’t come into common usage until around 1850, though some rich folks had them as novelties.)
Also, kings in those days had absolute power (at least, as long as you were under his eye.) If it bothered him so much, which is hard to believe given the nasty table manners that even the nobility displayed, all he would have to do is thunder out at a banquet: “The next guy who picks his teeth at the table is gonna be carrying his head home in a basket!”
You ask why we would still carry on with rounded-tip butter knives. The probable reasons are that the rounded tip helps immediately identify the knife at a glance as a butter knife, so you won’t start trying to saw your steak with it until you notice how dull it is. Secondly, why change? What would be the purpose of putting a sharp tip on the end of the butter knife, now that we no longer use knives as forks?
I read somewhere that the reason coat sleeves have buttons on them is because it irritated Peter The Great to see his soldiers wiping their noses on their sleeves.
I have no idea how true this is, though…
I heard it was George Washington. he put the buttons on top to stop it.
I also heard that circumcision was popularized by Dr. Kellog to curb masturbation. Corn Flakes were for the same.
I think the reason for continuing to use rounded tips is purely utilitarian. Ever tried to scoop and spread butter with a steak knife? The tapered point holds much less butter than a rounded one. Indeed, the instruments used in restaurant kitchens for buttering bread resemble flat rounded spoons more than they do knives.
Let’s at least get right the story mentioned in the OP. The anecdote is one usually associated with Cardinal Richelieu, which does affect how one interprets it. Powerfully though he undoubtedly was, Richelieu was not in a position to issue orders about the shape of other people’s knives on a whim. To make sense at all, the story must be that he had his own knives altered and that this then started a fashion for the new design. Whether the story is true is another matter.
Confusing the issue is the fact that in 1669 Louis XIV did introduce a general ban on pointed knives. That however had nothing to do with his views on table manners but was rather an attempt to crackdown on their use as weapons.
psychonaut’s point about the rounded design being better adapted to its present purpose may also be a factor. This however only became true once forks became widespread, as it was much easier to pick up food with a pointed knife. Despite what Lissa claims, forks were already more than mere ‘novelties’ in seventeenth century France, being used in polite society in much the same way as they are today. This was why Louis XIV felt able to ban pointed knives.
I’m rather sceptical of Cecil’s endorsement of the old story about Frederick the Great and the buttons on his soldiers’ uniforms. This ignores the fact that the buttons were already being used to hold in place the cuffs of men’s suits as early as the closing years of the seventeenth century.
There’s an old story that the sirloin got its name from King Henry VIII, who knighted his favorite cut of beef.
Unfortunately, it isn’t true. It’s from the Old French surlonge, sur meaning “above”. But it’s still a cute story.