Prescriptive Linguists (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

David Singmaster has researched this device and found other names:

TWO PRONGED TRIDENT; Devil's Fork; Three Stick Clevis; Widgit; Blivit;
Impossible
Columnade; Trichometric Indicator Support; Triple Encabulator for Tuned
Manifold; Hole
Location Gage; Poiyut; Triple-Pronged Fork with only Two Branches; Old
Roman
Pitchfork.

It appears to have become known in 1964, although there are apocryphal
references to earlier
incarnations, including a couple back to the 1930s.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society
> [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Jonathan Lighter
> Sent: Friday, February 01, 2008 10:37 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Prescriptive Linguists
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Prescriptive Linguists
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------------
>
> I goota git me one o' them CD's!
>
>   I was being cautious about the date.  I read _Mad_
> regularly from ca1960 till maybe 1975.
>   Deep trance suggests the cover may well have appeared in
> the mid-60s.
>
>   In fact, here it is!:
> http://illusionsetc.blogspot.com/2005/12/fork-optical-illusions.html
>
>   This appears to be the original source:
>
>   Schuster, D. H. "A New Ambiguous Figure: A Three-Stick
> Clevis." _Amer. J. Psychol._ 77, 673, 1964.
>
>   Check out http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ImpossibleFork.html
>
>   No OED entry for "devil's [pitch]fork."  HDAS has the
> excremental senses of "blivet" from 1945, plus more recent
> developments - but not this one.
>
>   "Clevis" is everywhere.
>
>   JL
>
> James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: James Harbeck
> Subject: Re: Prescriptive Linguists
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------------
>
> >I vividly recall seeing the "devil's fork" on the cover of _Mad_
> >magazine about 1970, possibly a little earlier, balanced on
> the finger
> >of Alfred E. Neuman.
> >
> > I learned the name much later. Am not sure if _Mad_ called
> it anything
> >at all.
>
> I don't recall that it did, and I remember seeing it in an
> older issue of the mag back in my insufficienty misspent
> youth. OTOH, if you can remember about when you saw it, and
> in what, I can try to look it up in the complete CD-ROM of
> every issue of MAD up to sometime last year or so, which I
> happen to have sitting within reach here.
>
> James Harbeck.
>
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Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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