A Story About Forks

  In 1608 an Englishman whose name was Thomas Corayte visited Italy. He liked the country and noted down every interesting thing he found. But there was one thing which he found more interesting than the others. In his diary Thomas wrote, “ When the Italians eat meat, they use small forks. They do not eat it with hands, as they say, people do not always have clean hands.”
  Before leaving for England, Thomas Corayte bought a few forks.
  At home Thomas gave a dinner to show the invention to his friends. When the servants brought the steaks, he took out a fork and began to eat like they did in Italy.
  Everybody looked at him in surprise. When 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 people because the fork was very inconvenient.
  Thomas Corayte tried to prove the opposite. He said it was not nice to eat meat with one’s fingers because they were not always clean.
  Everybody got angry at that. Did Mr Corayte think that people in England always had dirty hands?
  Thomas Corayte 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 floor. His friends began to laugh and he had to take the fork away.
  Only fifty years later did people in England begin to use forks.

                        (Taken from “Английский язык для школьников и поступающих в ВУЗы.” by Tsvetkova I.V., Klepalchenko I.A., Myltseva N. A.    Москва: Глосса – Пресс , 2003     c.73.)

Answer the questions:
1.Why did Thomas Corayte bring forks to England?
2.Why did everybody look at Thomas when he began to eat like the Italians?
3.Why did the first piece of meat fall to the floor when Thomas took it with the fork?
4.When did people in England begin to use forks?