By Chris Cosci

English is one of the most frustrating languages spoken in the world today. Of course, I say this without being able to speak any other languages, but that's beside the point. The problem is that the English language is very inconsistent. Take the word "tough," which rhymes with "huff." Add an "r" after the "t" and you get "trough," which rhymes with "off." Then, add an "h" after the "t" and you get "through," which rhymes with "you," which in turn is pronounced the same as "ewe" despite not having a single letter in common. How is that possible?!?

Anybody could sit down for an hour and come up with pages and pages of spelling and pronunciation issues in the English language. (Seriously, colonel is spelled like that? And why don't we pronounce the first "r" in February? Come on -- help me out here.) In addition, English is inconsistent in terms of definitions. In some cases, we have one word that describes multiple items (e.g., a bed is something we sleep in, a plot of ground where flowers are planted and the bottom of a river.) In other cases, we have multiple words with the same meaning (e.g., flammable and inflammable -- how convenient).

The issue I'm concerned with at the moment involves descriptiveness. Let's start with knives. Because the primary function of knives is cutting, a person who creates and sells knives is called a cutler. Furthermore, a collection of knives is called cutlery. So far, so good. However, these terms must have been coined during a rare, temporary moment of sanity because everything would eventually be complicated by the introduction of the spoon and the fork.

Cutlery was a clear and descriptive word. As spoons and forks became more common at the dinner table, one would have expected to see a continuing pattern in the terminology. A collection of spoons should have been called scooplery and a collection of forks something like stabblery or spearlery. These words may sound ridiculous, but they'd seem perfectly normal if we had been using them for the last couple of centuries.

Instead, lexicologists got lazy and bunched all of these items together under the cutlery umbrella. They took a perfectly reasonable word and stripped it of all logic. I can maybe accept forks as cutlery, but not spoons. That's just not right. Thankfully, there were other people who felt this way; so new terms were introduced to define a collection of forks, spoons and knives.

One of the most common terms is silverware. This works just fine... if it's actually made of silver. However, most sets aren't. Instead, they're usually made of steel, pewter or even plastic. Of course, when we're talking about plastic knives, even the term "cutlery" is a stretch.

Because of the various materials used to make these items, silverware just doesn't cut it (no pun intended... seriously). Still, it's better than flatware. Whose bright idea was that? Have you ever tried eating soup with a flat spoon? Honestly, that term must have been an inside joke that was never revealed.

Actually, there are two widely accepted terms that at least make some sense. The first is "tableware." The only problem with tableware is that the term also applies to anything found in a table setting, including plates and glasses. The second, more specific term is "eating utensils." While eating utensils perfectly captures the function of forks, spoons and knives, it's marred by being too long. Why use five syllables when you can use three? Society is too fast-paced. We need something catchy.

How about eatlery? Why hasn't anyone thought of this before? I'm coining the term right now. It's never too late to create a new word. Hundreds of new words are added to the dictionary each year. Last year, Merriam-Webster added "pleather" (plastic fabric designed to look like leather). If pleather can make it, eatlery is a shoo-in. It would add just the right amount of complexity our language needs.