Several years ago, I bought seventeen Indian 'silk' rugs. Unsure of them, I took one to a dealer who specialised in silk. To my shock, he took a pair of scissors, cut off a piece and burnt it, smelling the smoke. 'No, doesn't smell like silk.'

Before that, however, he had fun his fingers over the pile, feeling, as he told me later, the resistance - the 'scroop' - and said ... yes, you've guessed it ... 'No, doesn't feel like silk'. He was right. They were mercerised cotton. (But still pretty objects for all that.) So, I took them back to the guy who sold them to me. (Actually, I kept some, because they were very good carpets, silk or not.)

Now, 'scroop' is what I've discovered I like in a nib. Something to write against. Too smooth is like mercerised cotton. Scroop gives control.

Does this make sense?

Yes, it makes sense. "Scroop" is resistance or "feedback." Feedback does not have to be scratchy, it can be a smooth resistance against the paper. I am a mercerized cotton kind of guy myself, but I can well understand the attraction of feedback.

I have heard "tooth" and "feedback" and "drag" but always figured they were about the same.

I have some super fine pens... they are toothy.

But today I got a Sheaffer Connaisseur and it writes with your scroop. It is not tooth, I know what tooth feels like. It's not drag, it is to subtle.

It is just the tiniest but of touch. More than my slippery pens, but very very very little more.

Of course, you have to talk about ink and paper... but that's another story.

I have always maintained that a pen that gives any feed back is scratchy and needed to be smoothed. It seems like all EF pens come to me scratchy and need to be smoothed which I usually do.

BUT... I finally own a pen that is very fine and has feedback that truly is feedback and not just scratchy. It feels smooth, doesn't catch, flows on the page but you can hear it across the room when you use it. I am in love with my new (old) Conlkin crescent filler 3NL with a fine flexible #2 nib. It has Scroop!

I don't like nibs that are glassy smooth, and prefer nibs that provide some feedback. I have pens whose nibs provide just the right amount of feedback, and two whose nibs are just plain scratchy (which I do not like). For me, Lamy and many Esterbrook nibs fall into the "just right" category.

I suspect that my preference for some feedback comes from decades of ballpoint use. I've even noticed that my handwriting is slightly, but noticeably, better when I use nibs with feedback.