darkSpyro

A spoon is a utensil consisting of a small shallow bowl, oval or round, at the end of a handle. A type of cutlery (sometimes called flatware in the United States), especially as part of a place setting, it is used primarily for serving. Spoons are also used in food preparation to measure, mix, stir and toss ingredients. Present day spoons can be made from metal (notably flat silver or silverware, plated or solid), wood, porcelain or plastic.
Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Types and uses
3 Manufacture
4 See also
5 Sources
5.1 Bibliography
6 External links
History

Preserved examples of various forms of spoons used by the ancient Egyptians include those composed of ivory, flint, slate and wood; many of them carved with religious symbols.[1] During the Neolithic Ozieri civilization in Sardinia, ceramic ladles and spoons were already in use. In Shang Dynasty China, spoons were made of bone. Early bronze spoons in China were designed with a sharp point, and may have also been used as cutlery.[2] Ancient Indian texts also refer to the use of spoons. For example, the Rigveda refers to spoons during a passage describing the reflection of light as it "touches the spoon's mouth" (RV 8.43.10).[3] The spoons of the Greeks and Romans were chiefly made of bronze and silver and the handle usually takes the form of a spike or pointed stem.[1] There are many examples in the British Museum from which the forms of the various types can be ascertained, the chief points of difference being found in the junction of the bowl with the handle.[1]


Medieval spoons at Chillon Castle
In the early Muslim world, spoons were used for eating soup.[4] Medieval spoons for domestic use were commonly made of cow horn or wood, but brass, pewter, and latten spoons appear to have been common in about the 15th century.[1] The full descriptions and entries relating to silver spoons in the inventories of the royal and other households point to their special value and rarity.[1] The earliest English reference appears to be in a will of 1259.[1] In the wardrobe accounts of Edward I for the year 1300 some gold and silver spoons marked with the fleur-de-lis, the Paris mark, are mentioned.[1] One of the most interesting medieval spoons is the coronation spoon used in the anointing of the English sovereign.[1]


A wooden spoon found on board the 16th century carrack Mary Rose.
The sets of Apostle Spoons, popular as christening presents in Tudor times, the handles of which terminate in heads or busts of the apostles, are a special form to which antiquarian interest attaches.[1] The earlier English spoon-handles terminate in an acorn, plain knob or a diamond; at the end of the 16th century, the baluster and seal ending becomes common, the bowl being fig-shaped.[1] During The Restoration[citation needed], the handle becomes broad and flat, the bowl is broad and oval and the termination is cut into the shape known as the hind's foot.[1]
In the first quarter of the 18th century, the bowl becomes narrow and elliptical, with a tongue or rat's tail down the back, and the handle is turned up at the end.[1]
The modern form, with the tip of the bowl narrower than the base and the rounded end of the handle turned down, came into use about 1760.[1]
Types and uses


Cold breakfast cereal held in a dessert spoon


Using a plastic, Chinese-style soup spoon to scoop douhua
See also: List of types of spoons
Spoons are used primarily for eating liquid or semi-liquid foods, such as soup, stew or ice cream, and very small or powdery solid items which cannot be easily lifted with a fork, such as rice, sugar, cereals and green peas. In Southeast Asia, spoons are the primary utensil used for eating; forks are used to push foods such as rice onto the spoon as well as their western usage for piercing the food.[5][6]
Spoons are also widely used in cooking and serving. In baking, batter is usually thin enough to pour or drop from a spoon; a mixture of such consistency is sometimes called "drop batter”. Rolled dough dropped from a spoon to a cookie sheet can be made into rock cakes and other cookies, while johnnycake may be prepared by dropping spoonfuls of cornmeal onto a hot greased griddle.
A spoon is similarly useful in processing jelly, sugar and syrup. A test sample of jelly taken from a boiling mass may be allowed to slip from a spoon in a sheet, in a step called "sheeting". At the "crack" stage, syrup from boiling sugar may be dripped from a spoon, causing it to break with a snap when chilled. When boiled to 240°F. and poured from a spoon, sugar forms a filament, or "thread". Hot syrup is said to "pearl" when it forms such a long thread without breaking when dropped from a spoon.
Used for stirring, a spoon is passed through a substance with a continued circular movement for the purpose of mixing, blending, dissolving, cooling, or preventing sticking of the ingredients. Mixed drinks may be "muddled" by working a spoon to crush and mix ingredients such as mint and sugar on the bottom of a glass or mixer. Spoons are employed for mixing certain kinds of powder into water to make a sweet or nutritious drink. A spoon may also be employed to toss ingredients by mixing them lightly until they are well coated with a dressing.

A spoonful—the amount of material a spoon contains or can contain—is used as a standard unit of measure for volume in cooking, where it normally signifies a teaspoonful. It is abbreviated coch or cochl, from Latin cochleare. "Teaspoonful" is often used in a similar way to describe the dosage for over the counter medicines. Dessert spoonful and tablespoonful may also be found in drink and food recipes. A teaspoon holds about 5ml and a tablespoon about 15ml.
For storage, spoons and knives were sometimes placed in paired knife boxes, which were often ornate wooden containers with sloping top, used especially during the 18th century. On the table, an ornamental utensil called a nef, shaped like a ship, might hold a napkin, knife and spoon.
The souvenir spoon generally exists solely as a decorative object commemorating an event, place, or special date.
Spoons can also be used as a musical instrument.
To spoon-feed oneself or another can simply mean to feed by means of a spoon. Metaphorically, however, it often means to present something to a person or group so thoroughly or wholeheartedly as to preclude the need of independent thought, initiative or self-reliance on the part of the recipient; or to present information in a slanted version, with the intent to preclude questioning or revision. Someone who accepts passively what has been offered in this way is said to have been spoon-fed.
Manufacture

See also: Alloys of silver used in jewelry and silverware


A stainless steel bouillon spoon
For machine-made spoons, the basic shape is cut out from a sheet of sterling silver, nickel silver alloy or stainless steel. The bowl is cross rolled between two pressurized rollers to produce a thinner section. The handle section is also rolled to produce the width needed for the top end. The blank is then cropped to the required shape, and two dies are used to apply the pattern to the blank. The flash is then removed using a linisher, and the bowl is formed between two dies and bent.


The stages of the handforging process.
To make a spoon the traditional by way of handforging, a bar of silver is marked up to the correct proportions for the bowl and handle.
It is then heated until red hot and held in tongs and using the hammer and anvil, beaten into shape. The tip of the bar is pointed to form the tip of the bowl, then hammered to form the bowl. If a heel is to be added, a section down the centre is left thicker. The edges of the bowl and the tip of the spoon are left thicker as this is where most of the thickness is needed. The handle is then started and hammered out to length going from thick at the neck and gradually tapering down in thickness giving a balanced feel. During this process the piece becomes very hard and has to be annealed several times, then worked again until the final shape is achieved.
The bowl is filed to shape, often using a metal template. The bowl is then formed using a tin cake and spoon stake. The molten tin is poured around the spoon stake and left to harden. The handle is then bent down to 45 degrees, and the spoon is hammered into the tin using the spoon stake and a heavy hammer, to form the bowl. The bend in the handle is then adjusted to match the other spoons in the set and so it sits correctly on the table. The bowl is then filed level, a process called striking off. The surfaces are filed, first with a rough file to remove the fire stain from the surface, then with a smooth file. It is then buffed to remove any file marks and fire stain from inside the bowl and is polished to the desired finish.
See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Spoons.
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Spoon
Cutlery
List of types of spoons
Spoon bending
Spoon (musical instrument)
Spork – a spoon and fork combination
Sporf – a spoon, fork, and knife combination
Sources

^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m "Spoon." Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, 1911. Viewing the linked scan requires the AlternaTiff plugin in most browsers. This article incorporates text from this source, which is now in the public domain.
Jump up ^ Joseph Needham (2000). Science and Civilisation in China: Fermentations and Food Science. Cambridge University Press. p. 106. ISBN 978-0-521-65270-4.
Jump up ^ Hopkins, E. Washburn (1907). "The Sniff-Kiss in Ancient India". Journal of the American Oriental Society (American Oriental Society) 28: 120–134. doi:10.2307/592764. JSTOR 592764.
Jump up ^ Lindsay, James E. (2005). Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 128. ISBN 0-313-32270-8
Jump up ^ South China Seas Culture & Cuisine
Jump up ^ UKTV Food: Recipes: Southeast Asian cuisine
Bibliography
Bednersh, Wayne. Collectible Souvenir Spoons: The Grand Tour. Collector Books, 2000. ISBN 978-1-57432-189-0.
Features broad array of collectible spoons from around the world, with values.
Rainwater, Dorothy. Spoons From Around the World. New York: Shiffer Publishing, 1992. ISBN 978-0-88740-425-2.
Contains historical information and photos of antique collectible spoons.
Spark, Nick. Spoons West! Fred Harvey, the Navajo, and the Souvenir Spoons of the West 1890-1941. Los Angeles, California: Periscope Film, 2007. ISBN 978-0-9786388-9-4. Historical overview of American souvenir spoons with detailed photographs.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press
External links

Look up spoon in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
The History of Eating Utensils - Spoons. Rietz Collection of Food Technology.
The Making of a Spoon, Georgian style. Online Encyclopedia of Silver Marks, Hallmarks & Makers' Marks. Illustrated article on the hand forging of a spoon.

reported 4 double post

As a piece of cutlery or kitchenware, a fork is a tool consisting of a handle with several narrow tines on one end. The fork as an eating utensil has been a feature primarily of the West, whereas in East Asia chopsticks have been more prevalent. Today, forks are increasingly available throughout East Asia. The utensil (usually metal) is used to lift food to the mouth or to hold ingredients in place while they are being cut. Food can be lifted either by spearing it on the tines, or by holding it on top of the tines, which are often curved slightly. For this former function, in the American style of fork etiquette, the fork is held with tines curving up; however, in European style, the fork is held with the tines curving down.[citation needed] A fork is also shaped in the form of a trident but curved at the joint of the handle to the points.
Though the fork's early history is obscure, the fork as a kitchen and dining utensil is generally believed to have originated in the Roman Empire, or perhaps in Ancient Greece. The personal table fork most likely originated in the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire. Its use spread to what is now the Middle East during the first millennium CE and then spread into southern Europe during the second millennium. It did not become common in northern Europe until the 18th century and was not common in North America until the 19th century.
Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Types of forks
2.1 Novelty forks
3 See also
4 References
5 Further reading
6 External links
History[edit]


Bronze forks made in Iran during the 8th or 9th century.
The word fork comes from the Latin furca, meaning "pitchfork." Some of the earliest known uses of forks with food occurred in Ancient Egypt, where large forks were used as cooking utensils.[1] Bone forks had been found in the burial site of the Bronze Age Qijia culture (2400–1900 BC) as well as later Chinese dynasties' tombs.[2] The Ancient Greeks used the fork as a serving utensil,[3] and it is also mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, in the Book of I Samuel 2:13 ("The custom of the priests with the people was that when any man offered sacrifice, the priest’s servant came, while the fresh flesh was boiling, with a fork of three teeth in his hand..."). The Greek name for fork is still used in some European languages, for instance in the Venetian, Greek, and Albanian languages.
In the Roman Empire, bronze and silver forks were used, indeed many examples are displayed in museums around Europe.[4][5] The use varied according to local customs, social class and the nature of food, but forks of the earlier periods were mostly used as cooking and serving utensils. The personal table fork was most likely invented in the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire where they were in common use by the 4th century CE (its origin may even go back to Ancient Greece, before the Roman period).[6][7] Records show that by the 9th century a similar utensil known as a barjyn was in limited use in Persia within some elite circles.[8] By the 10th century the table fork was in common use throughout what is now the Middle East and Turkey.[1]
By the 11th century, the table fork had made its way to Italy. The fork came to Italy before any other European country because of pasta. At first, pasta was consumed by using a long wooden spike but eventually evolved into three spikes because of how much easier it was to gather the noodles.[9] In Italy, it became quite popular by the 14th century, being commonly used for eating by merchant and upper classes by 1600. It was proper for a guest to arrive with his own fork and spoon enclosed in a box called a cadena; this usage was introduced to the French court with Catherine de' Medici's entourage. In Portugal, forks began being used with Infanta Beatrice, Duchess of Viseu, king Manuel I of Portugal's mother.[10] That happened around 1450. Still forks were not commonly used in Western Europe until the 16th century when they became part of the etiquette in Italy.[11] It had also gained some currency in Spain by this time,[12] and its use gradually spread to France. Even at that, though, most of Europe did not adopt use of the fork until the 18th century.[6]

Asparagus fork
Barbecue fork
Beef fork
A fork used for picking up meat. This fork is shaped like a regular fork, but it is slightly bigger and the tines are curved outward. The curves are used for piercing the thin sliced beef.
Berry fork
Carving fork
A two-pronged fork used to hold meat steady while it is being carved. They are often sold with carving knives or slicers as part of a carving set.
Cheese fork
Chip fork
A two-pronged disposable fork, usually made out of sterile wood (though increasingly of plastic), specifically designed for the eating of chips (known as french fries in North America), fried fish and other takeaway foods. From 7.5 to 9 cm long. In Germany they are known as Pommesgabel (literally "potato fork") and "currywurst fork".
Cocktail fork
A small fork resembling a trident, used for spearing cocktail garnishes such as olives.
Cold meat fork
Crab fork
A short, sharp and narrow three-pronged or two-pronged fork designed to easily extract meat when consuming cooked crab.
Dessert fork (alternatively, pudding fork/cake fork in Great Britain)
Any of several different special types of forks designed to eat desserts, such as a pastry fork. They usually have only three tines and are smaller than standard dinner forks. The leftmost tine may be widened so as to provide an edge with which to cut (though it is never sharpened).
Dinner fork
Fish fork
Fondue fork
A narrow fork, usually having two tines, long shaft and an insulating handle, typically of wood, for dipping bread into a pot containing sauce
Fruit salad fork
A fork used which is used to pick up pieces of fruit such as grapes, strawberries, melon and other varies types of fruit.
Garden fork
Granny Fork
Ice cream fork
Knork
Meat fork
Olive fork
Oyster fork
Pastry fork
Pickle fork
A long handled fork used for extracting pickles from a jar, or an alternative name for a ball joint separator tool used to unseat a ball joint.[17]
Pie fork
Pitchfork
Relish fork
Salad fork
Similar to a regular fork, but may be shorter, or have one of the outer tines shaped differently. Often, a "salad fork" in the silverware service of some restaurants (especially chains) may be simply a second fork; conversely, some restaurants may omit it, offering only one fork in their service.
Sporf
A utensil combining characteristics of a spoon, a fork and a knife
Spork
A utensil combining characteristics of a spoon and a fork
Tea fork
Toasting fork
A fork, usually having two tines, very long metal shaft and sometimes an insulating handle, for toasting food over coals or an open flame
Novelty forks[edit]


Spaghetti fork
Extension Fork
A long-tined fork with a telescopic handle, allowing for its extension or contraction.
Spaghetti fork
A fork with a metal shaft loosely fitted inside a hollow plastic handle. The shaft protrudes through the top of the handle, ending in a bend that allows the metal part of the fork to be easily rotated with one hand while the other hand is holding the plastic handle. This supposedly allows spaghetti to be easily wound onto the tines. Electric variations of this fork have become more prevalent in modern times.
See also[edit]

Fork etiquette
Fork (software development)
Garden fork
Knife
Pitchfork
Spoon
Spork
Table setting
Trong
Tuning fork
References[edit]

^ Jump up to: a b c Ward, Chad (6 May 2009). "The Uncommon Origins of the Common Fork". Leite's Culinaria.
Jump up ^ Needham (1986), volume 6 part 5 105–108
Jump up ^ "Forks".
Jump up ^ "Fitzwilliam Museum – A combination Roman eating implement".
Jump up ^ Sherlock, D. (1988)[citation needed] A combination Roman eating implement (1988). Antiquaries Journal [comments: 310–311, pl. xlix]
^ Jump up to: a b James, Peter; Thorpe, Nick; Thorpe, I. J. (1995). Ancient inventions. Ballantine Books. p. 305. ISBN 9780345401021.
Jump up ^ Casey, Wilson (2009). Firsts: Origins of Everyday Things that Changed the World (F ed.). Penguin. ISBN 9781592579242. Retrieved 2013-09-02.
Jump up ^ Wright, Clifford A. (1999). A Mediterranean Feast: The Story of the Birth of the Celebrated Cuisines of the Mediterranean from the Merchants of Venice to the Barbary Corsairs, with More than 500 Recipes. William Morrow Cookbooks. p. 82. ISBN 978-0-688-15305-2.
^ Jump up to: a b Wilson, Bee. Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat. New York: Basic, 2012. Print.
Jump up ^ "Livro de Cozinha da Infanta D. Maria".
Jump up ^ Rautman, Marcus Louis (2006). Daily life in the Byzantine Empire. Greenwood. p. 47. ISBN 978-0-313-32437-6.
Jump up ^ "Table Forks of the Medieval & Renaissance Period". The International Guild of Hospitality & Restaurant Managers. Retrieved 8 Dec 2011.
Jump up ^ "The Irrational Exhuberance of American Dining Etiquette". Archived from the original on 27 October 2009.
Jump up ^ bookrags.com. bookrags.com (2 November 2010).
Jump up ^ popularhistoria.se[dead link]
Jump up ^ Adam, Thomas. "Germany and the Americas: Culture, Politics and History." ABC-CLIO, n.d. Web.
Jump up ^ news.carjunky.com. news.carjunky.com.

wat..........

Quote: Hot Dog 542

wat..........

I'm glad you got to enjoy "The History Of Spoons"

Quote: CommanderGame

Quote: Hot Dog 542

wat..........

I'm glad you got to enjoy "The History Of Spoons"

I thought this was about how to make pizza. I THOUGHT THE PIZZA I MADE AFTER READING THIS LOOKED LIKE A SPOON.

TWRP!

This article is about bottles in general. For baby bottles, see Baby bottle.
"Bottles" redirects here. For the 1936 MGM cartoon, see Bottles (film).


Composite body, painted, and glazed bottle. Dated 16th century. From Iran. New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.
A bottle is a rigid container with a neck that is narrower than the body and a "mouth". By contrast, a jar or jug has a relatively large mouth or opening which may be as wide as the overall container. Bottles are often made of glass, clay, plastic, aluminium or other impervious materials, and typically used to store liquids such as water, milk, soft drinks, beer, wine, cooking oil, medicine, shampoo, ink, and chemicals. A device applied in the bottling line to seal the mouth of a bottle is termed an external bottle cap, closure, or internal stopper. A bottle can also be sealed by a conductive "innerseal" by using induction sealing.
The bottle has developed over millennia of use, with some of the earliest examples appearing in China, Phoenicia, Rome and Crete. Bottles are often recycled according to the SPI recycling code for the material. Some regions have a legally mandated deposit which is refunded after returning the bottle to the retailer.
Contents [hide]
1 Etymology
2 History
3 For wine
4 Codd-neck bottles
5 Plastic bottles
6 Aluminum bottles
7 Gallery
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References
Etymology[edit]


A beer bottle
First attested in English in the 14th century, the word bottle derives from old French boteille, which comes from vulgar Latin butticula, itself from late Latin buttis meaning "cask", which is perhaps the latinisation of the Greek βοῦττις (bouttis), "vessel".[1][2]
History[edit]

See also: Phoenicians and wine
Since prehistoric times, bottle containers were created from clay or asphaltum sealed woven containers. Early glass bottles were produced by the Phoenicians; specimens of Phoenician translucent and transparent glass bottles have been found in Cyprus and Rhodes generally varying in length from three to six inches.[3] These Phoenician examples from the first millennium BC were thought to have been used for perfume.[4] The Romans learned glass-making from the Phoenicians and produced many extant examples of fine glass bottles, mostly relatively small.
For wine[edit]

Main article: Wine bottle


Classic wine bottle
The glass bottle was an important development in the history of wine, because, when combined with a high-quality stopper such as a cork, it allowed long-term aging of wine. Glass has all the qualities required for long-term storage. It eventually gave rise to "château bottling", the practice where an estate's wine is put in a bottle at the source, rather than by a merchant. Prior to this, wine would be sold by the barrel (and before that, the amphora) and put into bottles only at the merchant's shop, if at all. This left a large and often abused opportunity for fraud and adulteration, as the consumer had to trust the merchant as to the contents. It is thought that most wine consumed outside of wine-producing regions had been tampered with in some way. Also, not all merchants were careful to avoid oxidation or contamination while bottling, leading to large bottle variation. Particularly in the case of port, certain conscientious merchants' bottling of old ports fetch higher prices even today. To avoid these problems, most fine wine is bottled at the place of production (including all port, since 1974).
There are many sizes and shapes of bottles used for wine. Some of the known shapes:
"Bordeaux": This bottle is roughly straight sided with a curved "shoulder" that is useful for catching sediment and is also the easiest to stack. Traditionally used in Bordeaux but now worldwide, this is probably the most common type.
"Burgundy": Traditionally used in Burgundy, this has sides that taper down about 2/3 of the height to a short cylindrical section, and does not have a shoulder.
"Champagne": Traditionally used for Champagne, it is similar to a Burgundy bottle, but with a wider base and heavier due to the pressurization.
Codd-neck bottles[edit]


Codd-neck bottle
In 1872, British soft drink maker Hiram Codd of Camberwell, London, designed and patented a bottle designed specifically for carbonated drinks. The Codd-neck bottle was designed and manufactured to enclose a marble and a rubber washer/gasket in the neck. The bottles were filled upside down, and pressure of the gas in the bottle forced the marble against the washer, sealing in the carbonation. The bottle was pinched into a special shape, as can be seen in the photo to the left, to provide a chamber into which the marble was pushed to open the bottle. This prevented the marble from blocking the neck as the drink was poured.
Soon after its introduction, the bottle became extremely popular with the soft drink and brewing industries, mainly in Europe, Asia and Australasia, though some alcohol drinkers disdained the use of the bottle. One etymology of the term codswallop originates from beer sold in Codd bottles, though this is generally dismissed as a folk etymology.[5]
The bottles were regularly produced for many decades, but gradually declined in usage. Since children smashed the bottles to retrieve the marbles, they are relatively rare and have become collector items; particularly in the UK. A cobalt-coloured Codd bottle today fetches thousands of British pounds at auction.[citation needed] The Codd-neck design is still used for the Japanese soft drink Ramune and in the Indian drink called Banta.
Plastic bottles[edit]

Plastic bottles range from very small sample bottles to large carboys. The plastic is strain oriented in the stretch blow molding manufacturing process.
Aluminum bottles[edit]

Main article: Aluminum bottle
Gallery[edit]


A PET bottle


A bioplastic shampoo bottle made of PLA-blend bio-flex


Chinese ding-ware porcelain bottle (far left) with iron-tinted pigment under a transparent colorless glaze, 11th century, Song Dynasty


Reusable glass milk bottles


Pontiled soda or beer "blobtop" bottle, circa 1855


Bocksbeutel bottle


Two bottles for Maas wine, called "thieves", 18th century, at the Gourmet Museum and Library, Hermalle-sous-Huy, Belgium


A bottle wall of an earthship bathroom

See also[edit]

Beer bottle
Bottle sling
Bottle wall
Bottling company
Bottling (concert abuse)
Carinate
Glass production
Helmholtz resonance
List of bottle types, brands and companies
List of bottling companies
Reuse of bottles
Notes[edit]

Jump up ^ Bootle, Online Etymology Dictionary
Jump up ^ βοῦττις, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
Jump up ^ Perrot and Chipiez, Histoire de l'art, v iii, 734-744
Jump up ^ George Rawlinson, History of Phoenicia, 1889, Green Longmans publisher, 583 pages
Jump up ^ UK word origins
References[edit]

Yam, K. L., "Encyclopedia of Packaging Technology", John Wiley & Sons, 2009, ISBN 978-0-470-08704-6
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bottles.
[show] v t e
Laboratory equipment
[show] v t e
Packaging

The domestic cat[1][2] (Felis catus[2] or Felis silvestris catus[4]) is a small, usually furry, domesticated, and carnivorous mammal. It is often called the housecat when kept as an indoor pet,[6] or simply the cat when there is no need to distinguish it from other felids and felines. Cats are often valued by humans for companionship and their ability to hunt vermin and household pests.
Cats are similar in anatomy to the other felids, with strong, flexible bodies, quick reflexes, sharp retractable claws, and teeth adapted to killing small prey. Cat senses fit a crepuscular and predatory ecological niche. Cats can hear sounds too faint or too high in frequency for human ears, such as those made by mice and other small animals. They can see in near darkness. Like most other mammals, cats have poorer color vision and a better sense of smell than humans.
Despite being solitary hunters, cats are a social species, and cat communication includes the use of a variety of vocalizations (meowing, purring, trilling, hissing, growling and grunting) as well as cat pheromones and types of cat-specific body language.[7]
Cats have a rapid breeding rate. Under controlled breeding, they can be bred and shown as registered pedigree pets, a hobby known as cat fancy. Failure to control the breeding of pet cats by neutering, and the abandonment of former household pets, has resulted in large numbers of feral cats worldwide, requiring population control.[8]
Since cats were cult animals in ancient Egypt, they were commonly believed to have been domesticated there,[9] but there may have been instances of domestication as early as the Neolithic from around 9500 years ago (7500 BC).[10]
A genetic study in 2007 revealed that domestic cats are descended from African wildcats (Felis silvestris lybica) c. 8000 BC, in the Near East.[9][11] According to Scientific American, cats are the most popular pet in the world, and are now found almost every place where people live.[12]

So much wikipedia copy and paste.

This oughta stop it.

In the US, patents for sporks and proto-sporks have been issued. A combined spoon, fork, and knife closely resembling the modern spork was invented by Samuel W. Francis and issued US Patent 147,119 in February 1874.[4] Other early patents predating the modern spork include US Patent 904,553,[5] for a "cutting spoon", granted on November 24, 1908 to Harry L. McCoy and US Patent 1,044,869,[6] for a spoon with a tined edge, granted to Frank Emmenegger in November 1912. Many of these inventions predated the use of the term "spork" and thus may be considered proto-sporks. Given this significant prior art, the basic concept of combining aspects of a spoon and fork is well established; more modern patents have limited themselves to the specific implementation and appearance of the spork. These design patents do not prevent anyone from designing and manufacturing a different version of a spork. Examples of modern US design patents for sporks include patent number D247,153 issued in February 1978[7] and patent D388,664 issued in January 1998.[8]
The word spork originated in the early 20th century to describe such devices. According to a December 20, 1952 New York Times article, Hyde W. Ballard of Westtown, Pennsylvania filed an application to register "Spork" as a trademark for a combination spoon and fork made of stainless steel, although there is no longer any record of this application at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The Van Brode Milling Company subsequently registered SPORK for a combination plastic spoon, fork and knife at the USPTO on October 27, 1970, but abandoned the registration several years later. The word Spork accompanied by a stylised design is registered in the US in relation to hand tools, in the name of a UK-based individual (reg. no. 2514381).
In the UK, Plastico Limited registered Spork as a trademark in relation to cutlery with effect from September 18, 1975 (reg. no. 1052291). The registration is now in the name of another company and remains in force. The trademark is also registered in the UK in relation to gardening tools in the name of the same UK based individual who owns US trademark registration no. 2514381. Another British company, Lifeventure, sells titanium and plastic versions using the name "Forkspoon".
In an unsuccessful lawsuit in 1999 where the company Regalzone sought to invalidate Plastico Limited's UK registration for Spork, Justice Neuberger wrote:
I accept that the word Spork involves a clever idea of making a single word by eliding beginning of the word spoon and the end of the word fork. The fact that it is clever and the fact that the meaning of Spork could be said to be obvious once it is explained does not mean that it is obvious what it is. Indeed, I would have thought that if one asked a person in 1975 what a Spork was, he or she would not know. If one then explained what it was and how the word came about, one might then be told that it was obvious or that it was clever.

suing the **** out of you op