That’s the right-angle knife ‘the knife with a 90º angle (between handle and blade)’, not the right angle-knife ‘the correct knife with an angle’; hyphens can be your friends.
But right angle knife is what the ABLE-T company (more on them to come) calls one of its “affordable adaptive tools” that help to afford independent living to people with disabilities. Like me.
My right angle knife was a gift yesterday from Elizabeth Daingerfield Zwicky; I field-tested it at dinner last night for slicing celery, and it’s truly wonderful. (I had simply abandoned slicing and chopping celery and carrots — I eat a lot of celery and carrots — because it had become too difficult and painful for my sad afflicted hands.)
[Linguist’s note: I don’t often get a chance to use transitive afford (to) ‘provide or supply (an opportunity or facility)’ (NOAD) — with an oblique object marked by the preposition to — so it was a pleasure to deploy it above.]
The actual object:
(#1) I know this just looks preposterous, but you need to see it in use
(#2) This is how you use it, by gripping the handle (rather than using the fingers and the small muscles of the hand to guide the blade of a knife, which is excruciating for me)
The company. From the ABLE-T page via Amazon:
ABLE-T: “Modern tools for independent living”
ABLE-T was founded by an occupational therapist and engineer partnering to create affordable adaptive tools.
right angle knife: ergonomic design with a handle positioned above the blade reduces strain on the fingers and wrist
It’s a small company with an earnest purpose. (I’ve recently been collecting such companies, in my search for ways to improve the furnishings and tools in my little world. It pleases me no end that there seem to be so many of them.)
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