"Fingers were made before forks."When a person gives up good manners¹, puts aside knife and fork, and dives into his food, someone is likely to repeat that saying.

The fork was an ancient agricultural² tool, but for centuries no one thought of eating with it.Not until the eleventh century, when a young lady from Constantinople brought her fork to Italy, did the custom reach Europe.

By the fifteenth century the use of the fork was wide-spread in Italy.The English explanation was that Italians were averse³ to eating food touched with fingers, “seeing all men's fingers are not alike⁴ clean.”English travelers kept their friends in stitches⁵ while describing this ridiculous⁶ Italian custom.

Anyone who used a fork to eat with was laughed at in England for the next hundred years.Men who used forks were thought to be sissies, and women who used them were called show-off sand overnice, Not until the late 1600's did using a fork become a common custom.

“手指比叉子先造出来”，当一个人毫不顾及体面，把刀和叉放在一边，用手抓食物的时候，有人很可能会重复这句俗话。

叉子本是一种古老的农具，几个世纪以来，从没有人想到用它来吃东西。直到11世纪，君士坦丁堡的一位年轻贵妇把她用的叉带到意大利，用叉进餐的风俗这才传入欧洲。

到15世纪，叉子已在意大利广泛使用。英国人的解释是，意大利人不愿吃手指碰过的东西，因为“他们发现，并不是所有人的手指都是干净的”。英国的旅行家们叙述这个可笑的意大利风俗时，总是使他们的朋友们笑得前俯后仰。

以后几百年中，凡用叉进餐的人在英国均遭嘲笑。用叉的男人们被认为是脂粉气太重，女人们则被指摘为卖弄、炫耀和过分讲究。直到17世纪后期，用叉进食才成为一种风俗。