I can’t believe that no one has mentioned the real name of the spork: a runcible spoon. Always good for a trivia game…
http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=runcible%20spoon
-twr
The link to the Mailbag item is: Why is it so hard to get a good spork?
And note that Cecil has already written about the runcible spoon: What is a runcible spoon?
What I found so amusing about the question is that I ddin’t know there was any such thing as a GOOD spork. They all seem pretty useless to me, though my only experience was with the plastic kind.
><DARWIN>
_L___L
Two comments here, though one wonders why one should get all excited about runcible spoons and sporks (I’ll let others get excited about foons).
First, the instrument described in the American Heritage Dictionary as a runcible spoon is not the same as a spork. A spork is a spoon with short tines at the end; the definition given by the AHD is that of a fork with a bowl-like curvature and a sharp edge for cutting.
Second, in light of the true derivation of the term ‘runcible spoon’, quite thoroughly investigated and laid out by Uncle Cecil (so much for those who naysay his thoroughness!), showing that the term was meaningless, until some later joker appended a definition, I would have to say that the American Heritage Dictionary might be avoided for use in etymology. You will note they make NO mention of the fact that their definition came fifty years after the word was originally created.