Unsuccessful Experiment

In 1608 an Englishman, Thomas Coryate by name, was in Italy. He liked the country and wrote down everything which he found interesting. But there was one thing which he thought more interesting than any others.

On one of the pages Thomas wrote: “When the Italian eat meat, they use little forks. They do not eat with hands because, they say, people do not always have clean hands.”

Before Thomas Coryate went to England, he bought a few forks. When he got home, Thomas Coryate gave a dinnerparty to show the forks to his friends. When the servants put the meat on the table, he took out a fork and began to eat like the Italians.

Everybody looked at him. When the he told his friends what it was, they all wanted to take a good look at the strange thing. All his friends said that the Italians were very strange, because the fork was very inconvenient.

But Thomas Coryate didn’t agree with them. He said it was not nice to eat meat with the fingers, because people didn ‘t always have clean hands.

Everybody was angry at this. Did Mr. Coryate think that people in England didn’t always have clean hands?

Thomas Coryate wanted to show that it was very easy to use the fork. But the first piece of meat he took with the fork fell to the table. His friends began to laugh and he had to take the fork away.

Fifty years passed before people in England began to use forks.

Out of the answers given below each question choose the correct one to bring out the main ideas of the text.


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Unsuccessful Experiment