Pen and pencil: for texting the old-fashioned way

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

About 500 years ago or thereabouts a graphite deposit was discovered in England and sliced into the first pencils some time after that. Initially it was used in a holder.

Despite of the fact that the inner core of a pencil is called a lead there is no lead in it and lead was never used. The metallurgists who discovered this pure graphite in Britain thought that is was some kind of black lead and thus it was called plumbago.

In the 16th century, a large deposit of pure, solid graphite was discovered in Borrowdale, England. This was the first time in recorded history that high quality, solid graphite had been found. When metallurgists first encountered this substance, they thought it was some sort of black lead, rather than a form of carbon. Thus, they called it “plumbago”, which is derived from “plumbum”, which is Latin for “lead”.

It didn’t take people long to realize that solid sticks of high quality graphite were good for marking things. At that point, this newly discovered substance from the mines of Borrowdale became extremely valuable. So much so that guards were eventually posted at the entrance to the mine and laws were passed to stop people from stealing the solid graphite. In addition, once a sufficient stock of the graphite was mined, the mine itself would be flooded until more graphite was needed.

Of course, sticks of pure graphite are fairly brittle, so people started embedding them in various things such as hollowed out pieces of wood and also simply wrapped tightly in sheep skin. Thus, the pencil was officially born with a core of solid graphite, which was known then as black lead. The tradition of calling sticks of graphite “lead” has endured to this day, and in many countries the pencil is actually, in the vernacular, called, basically, a lead pen, such as the German “Bleistift”, which means precisely that.

But who uses a pencil anymore?

Pencils are like fax machines and margarine: They do a job, sure, but other things do the same job better – pens, email and butter, respectively. You can write a letter in pencil, but it's more adult to write in pen. You can solve a crossword in pencil, but it's more courageous in pen.

As far as I am concerned there are some things that a pen cannot do compared to a pencil, or at least not at the low cost.

When the US went into Space they spent millions upon millions to have a pen developed that could work in zero gravity, etc., which is now the Fisher Space Pen, while the Soviet Union (USSR) spent nothing, zilch, nada. They used what was already there and could do the same job, and yes, it was and is the humble pencil.

To be honest, we were issued – let me rephrase that... they tried to issue us – with the first generation of Fisher Space Pens (Bullet Pens) but they were so useless that we refused. The ink was so shall we call it think, or whatever was wrong with it, that it just could not follow fast enough as far as our writing was concerned. It just was not flowing well enough. Today the pen is somewhat better but I will just stick with an ordinary ballpoint or a pencil; thank you. Or, and now you can call me a real old-fashioned guy, a fountain pen, and ideally one that gets filled from a pot of ink.

But back to the pencil for a moment and the question as to who uses a pencil anymore? When I am working with wood, be it carving spoons, etc. I will mark the bowl shape (nothing else though) in pencil. On green, wet, wood a pencil mark works better than does a ballpoint pen and when I mark dry wood for cutting and such I always use a pencil, at time a flat carpenter's pencil. Also, the marks of a pencil can be removed from the wood (or whatever else) while that of a pen may be not.

Also, a pencil works when the paper is slightly wet (where often a ballpoint pen and especially a fountain pen will not), it will work on walls, upside down and in low gravity or even zero gravity environments, and in low temperatures where, again, ballpoint and fountain pen often will not do so. Thus there is still a place for it for sure.

I could not think about working without pen and/or pencil as I am still very much a pen and paper merchant. I also still write letters, though most of them, nowadays on the PC's word processing program and then printed out. The envelope, however, more often than not is addressed by use of pen though at times the typewriter – yes, one of those antiques, and mine is one, in fact – is used for that.

How could I possibly write in my diary – oh, yes, one of those books with paper pages in it – or my notebook, if it were not for the humble pencil or the ballpoint pen? The only drawback – though at times it is an advantage – of the pencil is that it is not really and truly permanent. Anything written can be erased by use of an eraser. But that is also one of the advantages of the pencil. Horses for courses, as they say.

© 2017

Old-fashioned ways for the modern age

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

When speaking here of and referring to old-fashioned ways I do not – necessarily – mean in a Luddite way or in a way similar to the Amish who refuse – basically – to have anything to do with modern ways.

It is not those – per se – that I will be speaking of but of the ways of old that especially today would be good for us and the Planet if they be brought back.

The old-fashioned ways I shall be considering and speaking of here are those that society today more often than not thinks quaint and antiquated, like walking and cycling instead of using the car, using pen and paper instead of electronic means for writing, for instance. As well as speaking with people face-to-face or on the telephone instead of sending text messages. And also making do and mending and making things rather than buying them.

The motorcar, it has to be said is beginning to fall out of favor in the second decade of the twenty-first century and that especially with young people and that to such an extent that many are not even bothering, while making the driving license, to actually acquire a car themselves. Instead they take to cycling, including for the daily commute.

This is a good turn of events as it cuts down on pollution from motor vehicle traffic – the less of them on the roads the better – and is good not only for the Planet and the doers' wallets. It also keeps the doers fit and healthy, if they do not get knocked off their bikes by inconsiderate motorists who seem to believe that they own the roads. But safety can be found in numbers here (as in so many cases) and the more people who will take to the bicycle the better.

The cost of fuel and everything else associated with owning and sunning a car is one of the reasons that the old-fashioned way is becoming rather popular again, that is to say the walking and the cycling.

A bicycle is not just cheaper to buy and cheaper to run. It also can be (almost) entirely maintained at top condition by the owner and also repaired. The bicycle is, however, but one of those old-fashioned ways that is making rather a comeback. The humble typewriter is another.

TYPEWRITER

In late Spring 2013 the Russian secret service community announced that, in light of the electronic spying by the NSA and GCHQ disclosed by Edward Snowden, the services are returning to using typewriter, albeit electric ones, for sensitive documents and communications. Thus the announcement of the death of the typewriter has been very premature indeed.

The typewriter is far from being an old hat and dead even though it could have been thought so with the large use of computers and such nowadays.

To all intents and purposes, however, the typewriter is very much alive and is having rather a renaissance these days and that includes also and especially manual ones.

Manual typewriters, and here especially old working ones, are sought after once again and not (just) to put on display. They are intended and bought for use. Reports even suggest that young people especially, in places such as the USA and other hyper-modern countries, are looking at using and learning how to use typewriters again.

PEN & PAPER

Pen and paper is another old-fashioned way whose death has been announced very prematurely indeed. In fact pen and paper is having rather a revival if the amount of Moleskine and other notebooks that can be seen carried and used and here very much again by the younger generation, especially young professionals, is anything to go by.

For many years we have been told – brainwashed in fact – that computers would make pen and paper obsolete and also that we should reduce and even eliminate the use of paper and go “paperless” in order to save the (rain) forests.

The latter, as to the rainforests and paper, is a total fallacy at best and an outright lie at worst as paper pulp cannot be produced from (tropical) hardwoods.

Why we are thus being lied to in such a way I cannot say but what I can say if that pen and paper are still very much in use and, it would appear, are coming back in vogue.

Even the use of the fountain pen is coming back and many of those that have taken to using Moleskine, Leuchtturm1917 and similar quality notebooks also invest in good quality fountain pens to use with those notebooks. Here it is also mostly “real” fountain pens – filled from an ink bottle – rather than cartridge pens.

Slowly, it would seem, many people are coming back to the realization that not everything modern is what it is made out to be and that not everything that glitters is gold. There is a great amount of fools' gold around which has been mistaken for the real stuff.

Too many of the good old-fashioned ways are not, as yet, coming back into their own but in order to bring back sanity into all of our lives and for the sake of the Planet they must be revived.

MAKING DO & MENDING is one of those and while the mending with products today that are made to break down easily and designed so they cannot be repaired in most cases it is a bit hard – but we can change that too – the making do is what we all can do already now. Especially here as to making do with what we already have as long as it works (well) and does the job.

Making do is something that we can and must do (again) for the sake of sanity, our wallets, and especially for the Planet. We only have this one Planet, we only have one Mother Earth.

Our ancestors, and especially here those of the working class and the peasantry, were masters in the making do department and from their ways, some of which are recorded in books and other publications, we can surely learn a great deal and we also must.

© 2013

The pencil, one of the most important inventions

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The pencil, one of the most important inventions in history if not the most important one.

While it is often said that the invention of the printing press with movable type – enter Gutenberg – was the most important invention and it liberated the people I put forward that it was the pencil.

The pencil made it possible to have a portable writing instrument on one's person and thus made reporters and journalists possible and with it the press, the media.

The pencil is also the only writing instrument that can write in space without the need of any technological invention and thus, instead of spending millions, as the US did to create a Space Pen that could write in the weightlessness of outer space, the USSR used a writing instrument already invented that would do the very same, namely the humble pencil.

It is not always the latest technology that is required and one does not have to go to invent something new; just use what has been proven to work.

While the humble pencil may not work under water, as they kept telling us when they issued us with the Fischer Space Pen, to which I replied that under water paper gets a little soggy anyway, it does work upside down, on a wall, and in outer space's weightlessness. And it also work in freezing temperatures.

Yes, true, it has got its drawbacks in that it needs to be sharpened every now and then but a small penknife will accomplish that quite nicely and, to add, when dropped the lead does tend to break inside. But those are bot minor drawbacks when the advantages are considered.

Call me old-fashioned, which I admit I am, but the humble pencil does it for me any day, especially a Number 2 or HB. Often we try to be far too sophisticated for our own good.

© 2013

Use your pencil to the end

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

If you use a pencil, and if you are drawing or doing a lot of writing where you cannot rely on a pen to work properly, then you probably do.

However, how far down can you still, more or less comfortably, use a pencil stub. Not all that far if you have large hands and also if you still want to do proper work.

But this dilemma was overcome many years ago, only too often today we don't consider that anymore, by the extender. They can still be gotten and are the answer to the problem.

As with pencils it is good to use anything and everything to the end rather than tossing it out with it not being used up altogether.

How many people toss their bottle of cooking oil, or dish-washing liquid, or whatever else, out with dregs remaining. Not me. But then people would consider me strange.

I turn such bottles upside down into a glass jar and thus, over the period of a few hours, have the dregs from the bottles run into the jar for future use.

Vegetable oil thus collected is used for treating and thereby preserving wooden products, such as wooden utensils and such like that I carve and dish-washing liquid thus obtained becomes a liquid soap for washing hands, etc.

The same goes for paper reuse in that all paper that is but printed on one side, from press releases and other sources, and even on “green” events press releases are all too often still on paper, and all too often printed single-sided, are used for printing what needs printing, at times, the making of notebooks and for printing lined notepaper for writing drafts (from a template).

So, waste not want not, and you save money and help the Planet.

© 2013