Originally Posted by mikemowbz

Don't you know we follow the Brits up here, rather than simply copying whatever you Yanks say is right?

Leave it to the English to bugger up a perfectly good language, amirite?

For the record, the use of 'fork' to refer to the individual prongs of a fork (thus, in cases, pluralizing the implement) dates back at least to to the 17C.

For 20C usage, take this bicycle-specific example from the 1957 Encyclopaedia Britannica III. 544/2 (courtesy of the OED): "The fork crown (at the top of the forks) is fixed to the steering column."

I suppose all those who find this linguistically unbearable object similarly to the apparent pluralization of 'pants'...