While tools combining a spoon’s bowl and a fork’s tines date back at least as far as ancient Rome, the popularization of the overachieving and arguably absurd spork is really a sign of our own times. In her book “Consider the Fork,” food writer Bee Wilson points out that “spork” didn’t enter the English language until the early 20th century and wasn’t a commonly used and trademarked term until the 1970s. Ms.
” As the titular robot dutifully and in Sisyphean fashion tidies up the mountains of trash left behind on a future Earth by the humans who have jumped ship for outer space, he stops short at the discovery of a spork. Ms. Wilson writes, “His little brain cannot cope with this new object.” One can hardly blame him.F. Martin Ramin/The Wall Street Journal, Styling by Anne CardenasGrowing up outside Hutchinson, Kan.
Are these the same ping pong balls that used to fall on Kaptain Kangaroo ang Mr. Green Jeans?