Sorry, I got behind. Too late for you to celebrate.

(1) I like pencils. I rejoice when I find one, among the heaps of dead
and dying ballpoint pens, in the kitchen. I can use it to add something
to the shopping list. If the point's broken or dull, I have a little
pencil sharpener that can fix it. Old tech, still works. Pencil keeps on
working until it's...gone!

(2) First appears in English ca.1350 meaning a small fine-tipped paint
brush. (Its closest cognate is French pinceau, which still means 'paint
brush'.) The device we now know as a "pencil" was invented in the 16th
century, and the earliest attestations use expressions like "pencil of
black lead" -- the graphite came from Borrowdale (Cumbria), and was at
first mistaken for a lead ore.

(3) Etymology: Not related to "pen" (Latin penna 'feather').
But related to "penis" (Latin pe:nis 'tail', pe:nicillum 'paint brush').

On 2024-04-02 20:23:53 +0000, Ross Clark said:

> Sorry, I got behind. Too late for you to celebrate.
>
> (1) I like pencils. I rejoice when I find one, among the heaps of dead
> and dying ballpoint pens,

I'm the reverse. We have masses of pencils that I never want to use,
but if I want a ballpoint that works I can't find one. From time to
time I buy a set of four at the supermarket and within a short time
they all go wherever ballpoints go. I have a fountain pen that I used
during the early days of Covid, but I haven't used it for a long time
-- getting too old, 81 today.

> in the kitchen. I can use it to add something to the shopping list. If
> the point's broken or dull, I have a little pencil sharpener that can
> fix it. Old tech, still works. Pencil keeps on working until
> it's...gone!
>
> (2) First appears in English ca.1350 meaning a small fine-tipped paint
> brush. (Its closest cognate is French pinceau, which still means 'paint
> brush'.) The device we now know as a "pencil" was invented in the 16th
> century, and the earliest attestations use expressions like "pencil of
> black lead" -- the graphite came from Borrowdale (Cumbria), and was at
> first mistaken for a lead ore.
>
> (3) Etymology: Not related to "pen" (Latin penna 'feather').
> But related to "penis" (Latin pe:nis 'tail', pe:nicillum 'paint brush').

--
Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 37 years; mainly
in England until 1987.

Ar an triú lá de mí Aibreán, scríobh Athel Cornish-Bowden:

> On 2024-04-02 20:23:53 +0000, Ross Clark said:
>
> > [...] (1) I like pencils. I rejoice when I find one, among the heaps of
> > dead and dying ballpoint pens,
>
> I'm the reverse. We have masses of pencils that I never want to use, but if
> I want a ballpoint that works I can't find one. From time to time I buy a
> set of four at the supermarket and within a short time they all go wherever
> ballpoints go. I have a fountain pen that I used during the early days of
> Covid, but I haven't used it for a long time -- getting too old, 81 today.

I enthusiastically recommend gel pens. Less force needed to write than with the
usual ballpoint, less messy than fountain pens. I tend to buy 100 Pentel
Energel pens and three times that many refills at a time, but then they’re a
legitimate business expense, you may not need to be that ridiculous. And when
they die, it’s a short lived affair, so the motivation to swap out the refill
immediately is fairly immediate and strong.

--
‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
(C. Moore)

On 2024-04-03, Aidan Kehoe <kehoea@parhasard.net> wrote:

> I enthusiastically recommend gel pens. Less force needed to write than with the
> usual ballpoint, less messy than fountain pens.

Some thirty years ago, I think, when I was still writing a lot by
hand, I switched to rollerball pens and I have stuck with them
since. Writing feels a lot more fluid with them than with traditional
ballpoints. Fountain pens--the cartridge-based ones, I'm not THAT
old--were enforced in school, and as soon as the teachers stopped
caring, students switched en masse to different writing implements.

Wikipedia tells me that rollerballs come in two different types:
liquid ink pens and gel ink pens. The latter match your recommendation,
I guess. I think mine are of the liquid ink variety.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

Athel Cornish-Bowden <me@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 2024-04-02 20:23:53 +0000, Ross Clark said:
>
>> Sorry, I got behind. Too late for you to celebrate.
>>
>> (1) I like pencils. I rejoice when I find one, among the heaps of dead
>> and dying ballpoint pens,
>
> I'm the reverse. We have masses of pencils that I never want to use,
> but if I want a ballpoint that works I can't find one. From time to
> time I buy a set of four at the supermarket and within a short time
> they all go wherever ballpoints go. I have a fountain pen that I used
> during the early days of Covid, but I haven't used it for a long time
> -- getting too old, 81 today.

That's altogether too many years for a pen to still be usable.

I used to like both pens and pencils. And I like gel pens a lot.