Regarding cutlery, as each course comes, do you work your way in to the plate or out?

Question

I am hopeless at etiquette. Utterly hopeless. And there's this dinner thing on Friday that I don't want to go to and... Sigh.

Help! If you have twenty thousand forks on one side of the plate and twenty thousand knives on the other, do you start with the outmost ones and work your way in? Or the other way around?

I know that it's apparently said in Titanic but I was playing thumb war with my brother when we went to see it so I wasn't actually paying attention.

Answer 1

From the outside inwards. I don't want to be invited by the Queen in case I get it wrong

Answer 2

soup, entree, main dish, cheese and dessert... that is usually the rule of dining... of course it depends where you eat and how fancy the place is... somewhere truly upscale, fish is eaten with 2 forks and you never use a knife on the meat that is supposed to be tender, such as confit du canard, you use a spoon, because using a knife implies that the chef overcooked the meat and it is too tough... anyway, the cutlery should be arranged in order of the courses and depending on what you order, a waiter will come and make the adjustments...  

Answer 3

Always from the outside  and work your way inwards However sometimes a soup spoon faces you you pick up the soup spoon to eat your soup ( you do not DRINK soup!) A butter knife is  always on the quarter plate, you just use that plate for your dinner rolls, and if for any reason you have  to put a fish bone etc never line your dinner plate with bones there -Fish knives and forks are shaped differently! Each piece of cutlery is placed according to the sequence of the  courses-

Just be yourself and ENJOY not many get A CHANCE  TO SUCH REFINED DINNING