Hello Ladies and Gents! Since I've been smoking a pipe I've noticed that pretty consistently I smoke my pipes the same way. I clench a little but when I hold my pipe I use my left hand. Now I'm right handed and I think I do this because I have better control with my right for tamping. However I smoke cigars using my right hand. So what about everyone else? What has been your experience?

I alternate between clenching and left hand about 95% of the time.

Same as Aaron more or less - left hand when holding a pipe and right hand for cigars. Never thought about it before, but now that I do makes perfect sense why (I am right-handed, and thus saving the dominant hand for tamping, etc.). Also, tend to park a pipe in the left corner of the jaw (my left) - you will notice the same in the avatar pics of both above as well - pipe on the left side. Great topic - how interesting!

I put the skinny part in my mouth, and jam tobacco in the fat part.

Ever since I read this a few years ago I have rarely held a pipe in my right hand.

"It is not enough to fill a pipe and put it to the mouth and set fire to it, for even the country bumpkin knows as much. It is only correct to hold it with the left hand, have the right hand provided with the stopper, impress the onlookers with majestic mien, sit in the proper attitude on the chair, and finally, to take enough time for each pipe and not treat with hasty irreverence this heavenly food."

-Peter Burmann on pipe etiquette, c. 1710

Hold it in either hand about 50% of the time and clench the other 50% of the time. It really just all depends on what I am doing.

Even though I'm right handed, I hold the pipe in my right hand and tamp with my left. Interesting that I've never thought about that over the years; the only other thing I do left handed is shoot.

So much for pipe etiquette. I hold it in the right hand and clench about 20% of the time. FWIW I also eat the wrong way around holding my fork in the left hand and knife in the right hand. I am right handed.

I am a clencher about 25 % and then either hand. Depends on the pipe and what I'm doing.

I am a clincher when smoking and use my right hand usually when holding my pipe. Just depends on what I'm doing at the moment, packing, lighting, tamping etc.

I too am right handed but hold the pipe 90% of the time in the left hand and about 10% of the time in the right hand. I do the exact opposite with cigars. I find that I never clench a pipe or cigar in the mouth; I always hold it in one hand or another.
As for tableware, I would hate to think that anyone's grandmother was wrong. I learned many years ago from Amy Vanderbilt that it is considered "more correct" to hold the fork in the left hand (tines pointed down) and knife in the right. That's why the table is set the way it is.