S. Worthen | Weblog

At dinner the other night, the following exchange:

She: This cutlery is literally 100 years old.
Me: Literally?
She: Well...
Me: Approximately?
She: *agrees and comments on the difficulty of getting it right to the very day*

Later, after I've had a chance to read my fork:

Me: You've seriously underestimated the age of this fork. It's 162 years old.
She: How can you tell?
Me: I read the year of manufacture* on the fork. The maker's mark on the knife was too small to read without a magnifying glass.
She: *boggles*
Me: But I'm sure the pattern was still in use forty years later!

* Or possible just the year the pattern mode was made. Still, unless its known to be a later use of the pattern, I'd claim the greater age for the fork, if at all appropriate, and since it's being presented as a historically-situated object.