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Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology

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Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology & the Ancient World
Brown University
Box 1837 / 60 George Street
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: (401) 863-3188
Fax: (401) 863-9423
[email protected]

As an etymological aside, it's interesting to note that people saw very well the redundancy of fingers and forks:

b. pl. (slang). The fingers. Hence, a pick-pocket (B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew ?a1700).
1812 J. H. VAUX Flash Dict., Forks, the two fore-fingers; to put your forks down, is to pick a pocket. 1834 AINSWORTH Rookwood III. v, No dummy hunter had forks so fly.
Consider also the idiom 'fork over'.

forkstory