Sporkin' the cole slaw.

This week's takeout dinner was courtesy of Colonel Sanders. I picked up dinner from KFC -- because the whole world is still takeout, or at least New York still is, thanks to Chinese Death Virus -- and found that they had included utensils. Specifically, half a dozen sporks.

These are pretty good sporks. They're small, so kids can use them too, but they're sturdy, even with the cheapskate hollow handles that probably save enough plastic per thousand to make four extra sporks.

Spork is a hilarious word. It's funny to say. Spork spork spork. Spellcheck on Blogger says it isn't a word at all, although it's in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate: "a multipurpose eating utensil that combines the bowl of a spoon with the tines of a fork".

The dictionary says that the word was first spotted in 1970. But what genius invented this utile utensil? Where did the spork come from?

Of course Wikipedia has a page devoted to the spork. This is why better-researched sources of information like the Encyclopaedia Britannica will never drive Wiki out of business, because they're too snooty to have an entry for the lowly spork. Here's what Professor Wiki has to say:

Spork-like utensils, such as the terrapin fork or ice cream fork, have been manufactured since the late 19th century; patents for spork-like designs date back to at least 1874....
The word "spork" originated in the early 20th century to describe such devices. In 1951, Hyde W. Ballard of Westtown, Pennsylvania filed an application with the United States Patent Office (USPO; now the United States Patent and Trademark Office) to register "Spork" as a trademark for a combination spoon and fork made of stainless steel. The Van Brode Milling Company subsequently registered SPORK for a combination plastic spoon, fork and knife at the USPO on October 27, 1970, but the registration expired 20 years later.

For some reason when I was a kid, we always thought it was great if a takeout place gave us sporks. Apparently I still do. I guess anything unusual catches a kid's eye. Not like Mom had a drawer full of Oneida Flatware sporks.

One last thought about the word spork: If you have a similar sense of humor to mine, and the word spork amuses you, have a listen to "The Björk Song" by Lore Sjöberg, formerly of the Brunching Shuttlecocks. Surely no song has ever had more words that would rhyme with spork.