Forks

The other day, my father and I got into a very odd conversation.  It was late, so of course our minds were somewhat scrambled and incoherent; I was talking about Google Street View and how neat it was, but then we found ourselves on the topic of forks.

"Of course, it makes you wonder," I said, "about four-pronged forks.  I mean, clearly, they are forks.  We might as well call them fourks."

Dad looks at me, clearly waiting for the point to be made.  (He cannot see the spelling of my voice, so the "fourk" thing didn't come across well)

And I say: "A three-pronged fork is no longer a fourk; it's a threek."

He's chuckling by that point.

"In fact, to quote a certain man who knew what he was talking about, 'Three tines is not a fork.  Three tines is a trident.  Forks are for eating, tridents are for ruling the Seven Seas.'"  (A tine is a prong on a fourk or threek)

He's chuckling very much then.

"Of course, it makes you wonder," I say again, "about sporks.  Most of them have four prongs, but what about the ones with three?  Are three-pronged sporks actually throrks?"

Okay, he's in stitches by this point.  (Even as I write this, I'm not sure of the existence of three-pronged sporks.)

There's another long pause in conversation, which is filled with laughing from him and a bit of deep thinking on my part.  Then, another enlightened message of utensildom:

"Or are they tridorks?"

I don't know about you, but I think a tridork is a nerd in elementary school with three heads.  Not a three-pronged spork.  Perhaps it's one of those words that has two meanings--like biweekly.  Is it twice a week or every other week?  I mean, who would come up with this jargon?

Apparenly, I do, because I just coined the doubly-meaningful term "tridork."  Good for me.