Someone at the coffee shop brought up the 'fork on the floor' item I posted a few days ago. It appears further elucidation is needed.
What makes a fork a fork? I would say, and I think most would agree, that a fork is characterized by its handle and three or four tines that lift food.
A fork is not characterized by its location. A fork is still a fork whether it's in the silverware drawer, on the floor or up on the roof.
We fetishize eating utensils. I can get a plastic fork at KFC that is perfectly servicable. Or I can get a fork clad in some precious metal, which comes in a velvet-lined wooden box. And both are still fundamentally characterized by their handles and tines.
Where does a fork belong? And what do we mean by 'belong'? We might say, 'forks belong in the silverware drawer.' But according to what? Newton's law? Custom? Artificial imperatives created by the marketing departments of Martha Stewart Living and Bed, Bath & Beyond?
There's a lot of blind acceptance of the status quo here, folks. Let's not be afraid to challenge our closely-held beliefs. How else can we grow?
I'm kind of a homebody, but I'm not afraid to push the envelope when it's called for.
7 comments:
Oh tish tosh and sophistry!
Your KFC fork is meant to be disposable and your dinner fork was meant to endure.
We don't pick up forks and put them away because we've been sold something by Martha Stewart, we do it because we're western rationalists who think the germ theory persuasive and so, rather than let dirty forks accumulate potentially health threatening germs, we pick it up and wash it so it will be clean when we use it next and we put it away so we can find it without having to look on the floor under the dining room table.
As far as a fork being a fork, there is no essence of fork or ideal fork and you know it. Salad forks are precisely what's called for when one wishes to stab raw veggies, while a dinner fork is larger to leverage against your knife and a serving fork is larger still and it goes all the way up to pitchforks for the hay in the barn. A three tine fork is more efficient for eating English peas than a two tine fork. All forks are tools, but not all tools are forks. Some tools stir up controversy rather than admit a dirty fork on the floor for weeks and months is stubborn and eccentric not to mention slothful. It's your eccentricities that make you charming, but on this one I call bullsh*t.
blogblah
Fork this shit.
i ditto johnL...
adding a bit of a twist... not sure what your floors were like back in the day...but now... i wouldn't stick a fork in my mouth that's been on your floor..even after 10 washings... nope... no way...why would anyone leave a fork on the floor anyway... 2 3 4 tines...are all pointy...and could do some major foot damage!!!
this reminds me of your toilet paper issue...you called controlling when it was more about convenience...
I want to know what the comment said that you deleted.
I'll have to call bullshit on this one too. C'mon, MCARP.... Really?
Now you're just trying to irriate everyone and unfortunately, it's working.
I love you anyway, so take that and stick it along with your fork, where the sun don't shine. Try as you may, you're not going to make any of us detach from you. So there!
Mindovermary
That comment was deleted by the poster. I didn't see it.
Plastic forks!! Something I simply don't touch, mind you.
Look at it like that: To produce that plastic, you need oil. You also need oil in order to produce these fairly superfluous containers for all the fast food and/or takeaway food some people like to buy.
So every time you use any of these throw-away utensils, just think of the wars your country has either been actively engaged in or else encouraged by proxy over the decades just in order to enable people like you to use plastic forks at next to zero cost.
And, BTW, and this will make you feel good (from wiki): "Its use was first described in English by Thomas Coryat in a volume of writings on his Italian travels (1611), but for many years it was viewed as an unmanly Italian affectation."
(Sounds like "The Oklahoman" to me..;-)
"Some writers of the Roman Catholic Church expressly disapproved of its use, seeing it as "excessive delicacy": "God in his wisdom has provided man with natural forks — his fingers. Therefore it is an insult to Him to substitute artificial metallic forks for them when eating."
So just stick to your natural mode, use your fingers! And I am sure that you have your own creative ideas re where to put them eventually..
Brigitte
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