Great job on the article concerning sporks (found here ) but I have to make a correction. In the article, you stated that supposedly there is a spork 25 feet high in front of the Chem-Lab building on Kansas State University campus. This is a common myth, certainly among K-State students. You can’t miss the sculpture, towering in front of King Hall, and it does look remarkably like a spork. In fact, every year, without fail, some student(s) feel the to imbed hundreds of plastic sporks in the ground at the foot of the sculpture, apparently in reverence to the spawning statue. However, in my time as a volunteer tourguide for the campus, I found the real importance for the artwork. The piece sits in front of King Hall, and is evidently supposed to be an abstract king chesspiece, which certainly makes sense due to its proximity to the building bearing that name. However, through the years, and much like the Chicago Historical Society, still claiming “The Windy City” refers to politicians, nearly all K-State visitors and students believe the sculpture is a spork.
A chesspiece, eh? I don’t suppose you’d mind linking to a picture…
It took me a while, but here you go: http://www.kstatecollegian.com/articles/1077170400/view/02.17.04.c.Fork.zl.jpg
It was an illustration in this article in the Kansas State Collegian which says
It sounds like the artist is leaving any interpretation of the sculpure up to its viewers. I don’t think we’re going to get much guidance from him on the spork vs. fork vs. chess piece debate.
Thanks for the article and the picture! I still like the chesspiece story, especially since it’s in front of King Hall…so, I guess it’s possible the artist decided to leave it untitled because he felt the sculpture ended up looking more like a fork than he wanted it to. lol But, who knows?
My pleasure.
Can I ask you something, Superman3? Is the top of the sculpture essentially flat on both sides? After looking at that picture, I can certainly understand why it’s called a fork by some people, but I don’t think it really looks like a spork at all. Shouldn’t a spork have “the shape of your everyday spoon” as well as tines? Where’s the concavity?
To me, it looks more like a cross between a fork and a spatula. (And if in the future some researcher from the OED should stumble across this thread, I hereby lay claim to having coined the word spatulork to describe a small implement having a broad, flat, flexible blade with tines at the end.)
Wow, when I was there we all thought it was a Wildcat paw.
Some wags would go out every time it snowed, and put a large snowball on either side of it, to make it look like a phallic symbol.
This was in the mid-80’s, FWIW.
LMAO I read the thread title and thought it was about homeland security regulations run amok.
Is it just me, or is the Titanium Spork link in the original column now defunct? 
Guess I’ll have to find something else for my birthday list
Chukhung – No, there doesn’t appear to be any concavity at all, which is why I never really understood why everyone thought it was a spork…oh well.
It looks to me like a defective basketball backboard (which might explain the past several losing seasons at Silo Tech).
I suspect the artist left it unnamed because even he couldn’t figure out what the heck it was.
So far as sforks go, do they really work as spoons? Seems one’s soup would dribble through the grooves.
Frankly, I have no problem at all seeing the supposed chess king.
Where? I thought they were out of business.
