Wooden spoon

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A wooden spoon

For those without comedic tastes, the so-called experts at Wikipedia have an article about Wooden spoon.

“The Wooden Spoon nearly put me out of business in UK prisons!”
~ Oscar Wilde on Wooden Spoons in Male UK Prisons

A wooden spoon is a spoon made from wood, often used in:

History[edit]

This is Paul Curtis. He is making a Love Spoon for his sheep.

The word spoon is derived from a word meaning a round fork carved from a piece of wood. Wooden spoons were, and still are, easy to Whittle and fun to make for the whole family, which made them common throughout all 4 dimensions. The usage of the term "spoon" is an insult because anyone who is called a spoon is trapped in the past. Wooden spoons have now been made in virtually every nation on Earth and Mars (except Orion-52.1.342\12).

The Iron Age Celts of Britain used them. This is evidenced by an example of a small spoon or spoonlet discovered during digs at Glastonbury. Surprisingly it wasn't made of Iron but of wood thus making it a "Wooden Spoonlet" in an iron-y nation.

Roman period spoons have been found during excavations in London (or Londinium Woodiniuspoonius). The Anglo Saxons were great workers and users of wooden spoons, as were the Vikings, and both of these groups of settlers of the UK made wooden spoons for every use. They even made a wooden spoon for eating with.

Modern day Britons don't use Wooden Spoons everyday, which is a shame. However, this is not because they don't like their wooden spoons but because labour in foreign countries is cheaper when it comes to spoon carving, hence all of their spoons wouldn't be British Wooden Spoons but "Houten Lepel".

Each region, sometimes each village, will produce their own type of wooden spoon. Many African spoons are carved by wild animals and are aimed at the tourists (50 points for a hit, 200 for a headshot); there are others that are for ceremonies and have pictures of famous dead celebrities on. Distinctive painted spoons have been made in Russia for nearly 200 years, originally for domestic use and in more recent times as objects to attract the tourists to eat them.

Britain is creating a new wooden spoon revival or "Give Everyone Wood Initiative". The UK Government plans to have "British Wooden Spoons" in every house around the world. For this to happen every single Brit would have to get their whittling knives out and start a-carving. This is unlikely not to happen. The spoons due to their relatively expert crafting will be released at a starting price of 2 lambs in Wales and New Zealand and 4 guineas elsewhere.

Traditionally, the intricately-carved wooden love spoon has been used as a token of affection in Wales. Each spoon could contain different meaning as shown by the use of various symbols, for instance: a chain would mean a wish to be together forever; a diamond would mean "I am hard for you"; a cross would mean faith "Not going to happen"; a flower would mean "You remind me of a female reproductive organ"; or a dragon for "You heat up my life but just keep away from my spoons". Many sailors carved spoons as they had too much free time at sea on their voyages, they would carve such symbols as anchors or ships into the spoon due to their lack of imagination. Although the Welsh love spoon has its unique qualities and offensive remarks, other styles of love spoons have been made in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, notably Romania. This was mainly to prevent the Welsh reproducing with anything other than other Welsh people and the occasional sheep.

Uses[edit]

A woman in a forest, in dire need of a good ol' Wooden Spooning. (NB: Either as a device of harm or... y'know)

Today, wooden spoons in western cultures are generally large spoons used for mixing ingredients for cooking, baking, eating, hitting your wife, fighting, masticationary devices for infants, sexual devices for imprisoned females (UK only) and hitting your husband after he spent his weekend Welly Wanging with his friends (UK and Eire only).

Before electric mixers became common, wooden spoons were often used to cream butter and sugar in recipes such as shortbread or Sponge cake. However they are still used for this function in all organic places in the UK and Eire. They are still used for stirring many different kinds of food and beverages especially soups and casseroles during preparation, although they tend to absorb strong smells such as onion and garlic. Some cooks prefer to use wooden spoons when preparing yummy rice because they do not transfer bodily heat as much as metal spoons. This is their major one-up if you will over the metal spoon.

Unlike metal spoons, they can also be safely used without scratching the bottom of the saucepan. Also they don't look retarded.

Wartime Function[edit]

The woodenspoon is considerd the most reliable weapon of war, second only to the spork but still better than the foon. It is the main weapon used by the Belgian Army with outstanding success. The method most often used for the woodenspoon is 'The Startling Effect.' The way it works is, the army with the longest wooden spoon starts making chants. The opposing army then gets really agitated and run out of their trenches screaming and waving their wood (Not the wood down below). They then stubble upon a mine field and are all nearly wiped out. because of the amount of explosions, the Long-wood army gets rather startled and flees his trench. They sadly enough run towards their former enemy but are quick enough to realise that and automatically going into a killing spree mode, but they overshoot the remaining enemy and get blown up by the remaining mines. The survivors of both remaining armies dive into the deserted trenches of their enemy and so the process repeats. the first team that loses a soldier because they where stabbed to death by a blunt spoon, loses. Be this from suicide, friendly fire or enemy.

Dick Cheney is considered to be the inventor and master of spoon warfare and has even succeeded in in maning a person in the face by only glancing at a wooden spoon. This is unsurprising because one glance from Dick Cheney scares anybody and anything into damaging someone or something hi.

Wooden Spoon Fencing[edit]

Wooden Spoon Fencing or "Spooning Fences" is a new underground sport based around the art of wielding a wooden spoon like a Sword. This is not a sport for spooning fences with your wood. That is wrong. The winner of the "duel de spoone" is the first person to jab the spoon section in the opponents eye which leads to temporary blindness. However, anything that touches a "non-handle" area of the wooden spoon will instantly be cut off by the umpire by means of rusty chainsaw.

The basic rules denote that:

The spoon MUST be held with only one hand on the handle
The spoon MUST NOT touch the floor in any size, shape or form.
If you lose twice you MUST only compete in the Paralympic Duel-De-Spoone competitions.
If you have lost once, you MUST wear an eyepatch.
Cheating IS allowed.
Lying about cheating isn't.

If a random spectator runs out of the crowd, grabs your spoon out of your hands and eats it, your great uncle's sister's nephew's grandpa is given $1,748 and a lifetime supply of wooden spoons. If he is deceased than the reward goes unclaimed and you get a piece of rotting Swiss cheese.

Incidents[edit]

1998, Mexico City, Mexico[edit]

That French Guy up to his crafty tricks again.

During an opening round match in the Mexican Woodenspoonympics, Matthew Power of Great Britain was facing some less important French bloke. The match started as usual with the umpire removing limb after limb. The French bloke with a crafty move cut off Power's fighting arm and with it the Wooden Spoon of Destiny('s Child).The adjudicator seeing this, cut out the centre section of the floor by means of rusty chainsaw. The world's greatest spoonist (and the french bloke) plummeted through the 10 storey building into a pool of fire. Luckily, the fire cushioned their descent and they did not die from the fall. They died due to severe burns and were instantly cremated against the wills of the families who sued to the value of £5 ($300,000). All that remains of them are charred remains of a British and a French competition Wooden Spoon set.

2001, Frijkyngfryzzing, Sweden[edit]

Atop an ice rink in the centre of the town, two families were warring over their daughter's pregnancies. The Von Houten-Lepel family, originally from Holland, claimed that their daughter was the Messiah after she was caught with a wooden spoon in her bedroom (See Uses) and also turned out to be pregnany. The family contesting them were the Pwnagilo family from Frijknyngfryzzing itself, who said that their daughter was carrying "The New Improved Swedish Jesus" because she was pregnant due to immaculate conception.

The deal was that the daughter's would compete in a blindfolded event, where the first daughter to prod the opponent's womb would win. The loser, and hence non-messiah carrying daughter, would suffer a fate just as bad as Death. Death.

On the 25th March 2001, they faced off in the middle of the town square surrounded by their families.

The result? They both died. They only wore blindfolds in the middle of March in central Sweden.

The Messiah was never born.

References in pop culture[edit]

In the chili cook off episode of "The Simpsons", Homer Simpson uses a wooden spoon. Lenny whispers that there is speculation that he originally carved it from a bigger spoon. Truth is... it was. The big spoon or El Biggo Spoooooooooon is still in existence in deep South Mexico and is commonly used by prophets who want to predict how the world will end. The best theory they have come up with during their two-thousand year research is that the sun may be blotted out by some kind of big wooden spoon called El.

External links[edit]