Wondering about wild grapes

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Wondering about Forks

Fist, an update on yesterday’s blog. The scratch marks and circle of stones have mostly disappeared due to me driving over them. I am leaning toward blaming the circle of stones on a cat, or pig, or a bird of some kind. The scrapes could have been from almost any animal large enough to make one that size. Of course we will not rule out something from outer space or super natural. . .

I will keep watch over that area and see if anything else weird happens. Will let you know.


Now, I was wondering about forks and how did they get their name. I have eaten with forks for many years and we have owned a few. Here is a picture of a couple of forks that we have owned and have used over the years:



The one on the right is what I call a normal fork, but the one on the left only has three tines. Does that make it a “Threek” instead of a “Fork”, since there are only three tines? Don’t know, but that is what I always called them.

Now look at pitch forks, hay forks, etc.; they can have from two to six or more tines, not the normal four. Maybe that is why the word we use to identify them is spelled fork instead of fourk.

OK, WikipediA states that: (The word ‘fork’ is derived from the Latin furca, meaning “pitchfork.”) So, I have learned something today. The word fork doesn’t relate to the word four, but to a Latin word. Guess I should have paid more attention to my Latin teacher in high school.

4 comments:

  1. How bout this fork ?
    http://brainden.com/images/devils-fork.gif

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  2. Yep Ben, That one is missing something somewhere.

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  3. I live in Lafourche parish. Lafourche is french for the fork something the locals mostly don't seem to know. It's named that because its situated along the Lafourche Bayou where we throw our shit and get our drinking water. The bayou is called Lafourche because it was a major river that split off the Mississippi until 1905 when humans decide to mess with Mother Nature and dammed it at the Mississippi. That has not worked out well.

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  4. Sounds like you guys do the same thing with the Bayou as do the personnel in the space lab. Glad to know that Lafourche means fort. May come in handy some day.

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