Comments on: Where do all the teaspoons go to?

Where do all the teaspoons go to?

hardcode — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 09:17:49 -0800

Where do all the teaspoons go to? A scientific study published in the British Medical Journal about where all the teaspoons in a works canteen go to.

By: eriko

eriko — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 10:30:27 -0800

Oh, lovely. Clearly Ig Nobel worthy.

By: Pigpen

Pigpen — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 10:40:23 -0800

It is disappointing that the authors are not considering 'what happened to my other sock?' as a future research area. I believe the single sock phenomenon is a far more important problem than missing teaspoons.

By: Cranberry

Cranberry — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 11:04:23 -0800

Even more disappointing is ignoring the missing earring.

By: Secret Life of Gravy

Secret Life of Gravy — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 11:43:52 -0800

Well I, for one, would certainly like to know where my missing teaspoons are. I am missing two from my sterling silver service for 12 so it is no joke. Last time I checked it would cost about $60.00 a piece to replace.

By: scheptech

scheptech — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 12:03:40 -0800

One possible explanation for the phenomenon is resistentialism (the theory that inanimate objects have a natural aversion to humans) Or that humans have a natural aversion to sharing food-touching-items. Note the dissappearance from 'common' areas is greater. I would theorize the missing implements would be found in desk drawers. Further research of course would be needed to determine if the rate of dissappearance falls off as the number of absent spoons approaches the number of desks.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 12:08:42 -0800

Teaspoon displacement and loss leads to the use of forks, knives, and staplers to measure out coffee and sugar, inevitably causing a reduction in employee satisfaction.... Staplers?!

By: Wilder

Wilder — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 12:12:34 -0800

Each year the Christmas edition of the BMJ is "spoof" articles. The methodology is as close to authentic as possible but the subject matter is hilarious. I loved the disappearing spoons as it happens in my kitchen too!

By: lodurr

lodurr — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 12:19:24 -0800

Pigpen: It is disappointing that the authors are not considering 'what happened to my other sock?' as a future research area. I believe the single sock phenomenon is a far more important problem than missing teaspoons.

Cranberry, everyone knows that's down to the Lord of the Socks

By: lodurr

lodurr — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 12:19:42 -0800

oops, i mean, pigpen. damn.

By: Postroad

Postroad — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 12:35:01 -0800

use plastic. Plastic spoons increase monthly

By: Steven C. Den Beste

Steven C. Den Beste — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 12:39:36 -0800

As regards socks, long ago it was noticed that socks disappear and wire coat hangers accumulate. Finally someone figured out why: socks are the larval form of wire coat hangers.

By: obfusciatrist

obfusciatrist — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 13:52:12 -0800

about where all the teaspoons in a works canteen go to. I'm not going to read the article because this bit is completely nonsensical to me. Seriously, it is like random words were selected and I have no idea what it means. I have no idea what a works canteen is. I think I prefer this ignorance.

By: bobo123

bobo123 — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 14:19:27 -0800

I'm dissapointed they didn't use RFID to track the teaspoons.

By: Steven C. Den Beste

Steven C. Den Beste — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 14:37:45 -0800

British "Canteen" == American "Cafeteria" British "First Floor" == American "Second Floor" British "Fag" == American "Cigarette" British "Lorry" == American "Truck" Who says we speak the same language?

By: kaemaril

kaemaril — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 14:55:10 -0800

obfusciatrist: works (used with a sing. or pl. verb) A factory, plant, or similar building or complex of buildings where a specific type of business or industry is carried on. Often used in combination: a steelworks (dictionary.com)

By: StickyCarpet

StickyCarpet — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 15:56:26 -0800

about where all the teaspoons in a works canteen go to. I'm not going to read the article because this bit is completely nonsensical to me. Seriously, it is like random words were selected... I, too, wonder where the spoons are at.

By: kaemaril

kaemaril — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 16:26:32 -0800

I, too, wonder where the spoons are at. Obviously, they emigrate. To the Biro planet. Where they shack up with the odd socks.

By: Meridian

Meridian — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 16:43:11 -0800

On first reading I thought the title was "Where do all the tampons go to?" The brain is a mysterious thing.

By: darkstar

darkstar — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 17:10:20 -0800

It's time like this that I wish there were a less cliche way of describing how I am rolling on the floor laughing than simply to type "ROFL". I'm now getting the image of socks and teaspoons (or tampons) conjoining to form a completely new, inanimate life form: wire coat hangers. The brain is, indeed, a mysterious thing.

By: CunningLinguist

CunningLinguist — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 18:18:05 -0800

So if socks and teaspoons make hangers, do lighters and sunglasses make dust bunnies?

By: darkstar

darkstar — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 18:28:57 -0800

Hmm...I'm now growing suspicious of those temporary "absences" of the remote control. Does the remote control, its egg sac full, go off and lay its brood in the body of the hapless lighters and sunglasses, then return to sleep off its post ovulatory excess in the cranny of the sofa? Meanwhile, the remote control eggs hatch within their hosts, devouring them from within, leaving nothing but the dessicated remains: dust bunnies, plastic grocery bags and t-shirts, depending on the original host. That would explain the strange accretion of remotes over time, too. It's all beginning to make sense, now...

By: Steven C. Den Beste

Steven C. Den Beste — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 20:27:39 -0800

Dust bunnies are the cast-off larval skins of socks left over after they metamorphosize into wire hangers. I would have thought that was obvious.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 22:21:18 -0800

All the really hoopy froods know where their teaspoons are.

By: TwelveTwo

TwelveTwo — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 23:43:09 -0800

What about telephone wire nesting shoe pairs?

By: PlanoTX

PlanoTX — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 23:51:55 -0800

On behalf of the New Zealand Film Commission, I have flagged this scholarly article to Peter Jackson. The cause of popular science (not the magazine) requires a new trilogy: "Lord of the Spoons"

By: Harry

Harry — Sun, 25 Dec 2005 01:38:41 -0800

These guys need some SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONGUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARD. Though some might disagree.

By: CunningLinguist

CunningLinguist — Sun, 25 Dec 2005 04:30:17 -0800

Dust bunnies are the cast-off larval skins of socks left over after they metamorphosize into wire hangers. Okay, that makes sense. But it doesn't explain the vanishing lighters and sunglasses. You know they're up to no good....

By: Oriole Adams

Oriole Adams — Sun, 25 Dec 2005 06:18:26 -0800

Why not just use plastic coffee stirrers instead of teaspoons? Those things multiply on their own.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Sun, 25 Dec 2005 08:21:13 -0800

Steven C. Den Beste: As regards socks, long ago it was noticed that socks disappear and wire coat hangers accumulate. Finally someone figured out why: socks are the larval form of wire coat hangers.

This is a variant of a theory originally proposed, AFAIK, by Avram Davidson in a wonderfully creepy short story called "Or All The Seas With Oysters." However, in Davidson's conception, the wire coat hanger was the pupal form of a life form which had is finaly manifestation as a bicycle, which was apparently a very intelligent form of life. The pupal form was the wire paperclip. And they're not pleased when the secret is discovered....

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Sun, 25 Dec 2005 10:37:56 -0800

Ahhhh, so there *is* a spoon, we just don't know where it is.

By: y2karl

y2karl — Sun, 25 Dec 2005 10:50:23 -0800

That's Avram Davidson, thank you. And while, Or All The Seas With Oysters is apparently unavailable online at this moment, another Avram Davidson all time classic is. Here's his take on The Golem and--Happy Hanukah !--this one's on me ! Hmm, I see this issue of The Nutmeg District Point Mail has an intersting monograph on bicycles in the work of Davidson. *Grumble, gripe, bitch, moan* Wikipedia! *rolls eyes*

By: y2karl

y2karl — Sun, 25 Dec 2005 11:09:17 -0800

Well. drat--That's Vol. V No. 4 of The Nutmeg Point District Mail, to be sure. One of my ultimate If only I had known! moments came when I read Davidson's obituary in the Seattle Times. He had lived and then died in poverty in Bremerton for some years before he passed on. As Reno W. Odlin noted in the Nutmeg Point District Mail,

If ever a man deserved to live out his years in the shade of a Great Library, that man was Avram Davidson. What did he find instead? Bremerton, WA (Samuel Butler sang, famously, "O God! O Montreal!" Had he but seen Bremerton!), and a series of V.A. facilities -- if that last word does not make the phrase something like the ultimate oxymoron.

Bremerton may be the happening place now, at least as insofar as realtors are concerned, but in 1993 it was truly the end of the road. And I could have met him if I had only known....

By: Scooter

Scooter — Sun, 25 Dec 2005 13:55:53 -0800

use plastic. Plastic spoons increase monthly posted by Postroad at 12:35 PM PST on December 24 Best hypothesis: Metal spoons transform into plastic spoons and migrate as a regular part of their life cycle.

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Sun, 25 Dec 2005 16:40:03 -0800

Avram Davidson's Adventures in Unhistory essays (in one of the latter-day pulp anthology-magazine things of the late 70's and early 80's -- Isaac Asimov's, maybe) were one of my Favorite Things back when I was a whippersnapper. Despite the fact that I haven't read any of them since, I recall them with fondness. Googling as I write this, I see that they've since been collected and republished. I'm almost afraid that if I did get my hands on a copy, though, I'd be disappointed. Memory's often better than the reality.