The Dreaded Question

[rwilsonedn]

I was attending a trade show for the industry I work in yesterday, wandering the floor. One major company had a booth just to sell company-branded swag--the usual stuff, including hoodies, water bottles, note pads and pens. Rather nice pens, actually.

I mentioned to the young woman at the sales counter that there were no fountain pens on display. She affixed me with a puzzled stare and asked, "What's a fountain pen?"

Is this level of ignorance becoming frequent, or did I just happen on a very unusual individual?

ron

[torstar]

Not a good start to a relationship in my books....

[Wolverine1]

I was sitting in a coffeeshop a half block from where the main campus of the University of Michigan's campus is located. I was writing with my Sailor 1911 Realo pen, when a bunch of undergrad women stared at me. They didnot know what a "fountain pen" was, and said it was "weird" that it took ink, they said they thought the el-cheapo Bic Sticks were "so much better". Sad, but, seems to be the way a lot of millenials are.

[Cyber6]

 

Is this level of ignorance becoming frequent, or did I just happen on a very unusual individual?

ron

 

Is not willful ignorance... I am sure she is very young and she hasn't been exposed to them.

 

I have three gifted children.. really gifted. I was shocked the first time they saw a manual typewriter.. They just look at it and ask... "What's that?"... I realize just then and there.. technology has come far..

 

 

 

C.

[jar]

Went to deposit a check today and the teller commented on my fountain pen and how he used them at home but after putting one in the little carriers so a client in a car could endorse a check and the pen not coming back with the signed check he no longer brings them to work.

[ISW_Kaputnik]

My impression, based on admittedly limited experience, is that younger people do usually know that there are "old fashioned" pens with weird looking "points". They may even have an impression that they take some sort of special ink. But they don't know the terminology. I'd guess that if this young lady saw a fountain pen, it would not be totally unfamiliar, even if she had only seen pictures of them before.

[majorworks]

I was attending a trade show for the industry I work in yesterday, wandering the floor. One major company had a booth just to sell company-branded swag--the usual stuff, including hoodies, water bottles, note pads and pens. Rather nice pens, actually.

I mentioned to the young woman at the sales counter that there were no fountain pens on display. She affixed me with a puzzled stare and asked, "What's a fountain pen?"

Is this level of ignorance becoming frequent, or did I just happen on a very unusual individual?

ron

 

Seems to me that more people these days know or refer to FPs as "ink pens."

[petra]

I teach in an art school... my students often have fancier pens than I have!

[ISW_Kaputnik]

 

Seems to me that more people these days know or refer to FPs as "ink pens."

 

You may be right. I've always found this an odd and imprecise term, since even ballpoints use a type of ink. But that doesn't stop people from saying it.

[pajaro]

I have met few people who don't know what a fountain pen is. A few hadn't seen one until I showed them one. I don't know whether they were impressed, smitten or not. I think the BIC might indeed be a superior writing instrument, because it writes reliably and long without the same level of risk of ink leakage. Think what you want, but one might as well be intellectually honest. I still write with a fountain pen much of the time solely because I like to. I don't care if the BIC is superior, but I don't try to try to say the fountain pen is superior. They all write.

Edited August 19, 2016 by pajaro

[elysee]

Sadly, most people think of Bic stick pens and other disposable pens when one mentions a "pen". Many do not realize that there are such things as rollerball pens let alone fountain pens. On occasion when I have mentioned fountain pens during my classes, there are a few -- very few -- students who have seen fountain pens as well as some who own fountain pens.

Edited August 19, 2016 by elysee

[Jerome Tarshis]

I am in the habit of asking "Do you have any fountain pens?" in many retail settings where I might be able to buy one, including but not confined to thrift shops, flea markets, art-supplies shops, and stationery shops. It is by no means rare that I am asked in return what the OP refers to as the dreaded question: "What's a fountain pen?"

 

Nor is it only These Young People Nowadays. As an old man I have trouble understanding that what we used to think of as the hippie generation, the ones who grew up blissfully before AIDS, the ones who changed popular music so that it offers me very little, are now gray-haired or indeed white-haired oldsters themselves. Here in Northern California there are still Deadheads. These kids nowadays they are not. And they don't relate to the idea of fountain pens any more than the ones now dismissed as "millennials."

 

Ironically enough, we now have fairly young people, at least in the visual arts, who do relate to fountain pens.

[pajaro]

If I were a young person today, which I am not, and if I were looking for a pen to blend with normal life today, I doubt I would consider a fountain pen or a rollerball. I would buy a stylish ballpoint with a stylus on the other end for use with my whatever pad or cell phone..

[rwilsonedn]

If I were a young person today, which I am not, and if I were looking for a pen to blend with normal life today, I doubt I would consider a fountain pen or a rollerball. I would buy a stylish ballpoint with a stylus on the other end for use with my whatever pad or cell phone..

Which, interestingly enough, is exactly what the aforementioned major company had on display in their swag shop. Incidentally, I would guess the "young woman" in question was in her late 20s to mid 30s--not a teenager.

ron

[ENewton]

Recently I was flushing a fountain pen in a sink at work when another employee came up from behind me and gasped, "You write with a real pen!"

[Jjf1989]

My impression, based on admittedly limited experience, is that younger people do usually know that there are "old fashioned" pens with weird looking "points". They may even have an impression that they take some sort of special ink. But they don't know the terminology. I'd guess that if this young lady saw a fountain pen, it would not be totally unfamiliar, even if she had only seen pictures of them before.

I work in the children's section of a library and sometimes bring my pens to work for kids to try while they are there. It's actually shocking how many younger people know what they are. But you are right, they don't know the terms.

I did have one kid who called it "grandpa's pen!" Ha!

[Fuzzy_Bear]

My kids each have their own FP's. Most people in my age range ask if it is a calligraphy pen.

 

I had an older couple watching me write in a journal while waiting to get my daughter's blood drawn. She was playing on her tablet at the time. They commented that they had not seen on in some time and had not seen anyone my age using one.

[Tweel]

Specific reactions in public have been all over the board for me. At one campus-area shop I was told that they couldn't keep their fountain pens in stock -- they were receiving a shipment every week, which were promptly snapped up by students. Just down the street at another student-oriented shop, the reaction of the clerk when I took out a FP to sign the receipt was, "Whoa, you got one of them old feathers! That's really old!" (It was an M800). "Calligraphy pen" and "ink pin" (almost invariably pronounced as with an "i") are common. One older cashier identified my Snorkel with the terribly scratchy dip pen she had to use, and hated, in elementary school, while another, young, cashier at the same store was entranced by that same pen.

 

So, there still seems to be at least some sort of baseline awareness of nibbed pens in general, and I suppose I'll continue to use mine where they can be seen and answer questions when they come up.

[PS104]

Went to deposit a check today and the teller commented on my fountain pen and how he used them at home but after putting one in the little carriers so a client in a car could endorse a check and the pen not coming back with the signed check he no longer brings them to work.

Sounds like he had Vladimir Putin in the car. He NEVER ​gives ANYTHING back

Always carry a cheapo Bic to lend

[inkstainedruth]

Last week I was on my annual "pseudo-vacation" [in theory it's a vacation, but anymore I have so much running around to do and responsibilities that it's not a lot of fun -- plus, this year it was unbearably hot and humid] Amongst other things I'd had to go to several meetings one day (the first one starting at 9 AM). I was a bit late for the last one (3 PM) so it was crowded; and there weren't enough copies of the agenda so I was having to share with a couple of people. There was a guy sitting in front of me making notes on his copy.

I leaned forward and said to him, "So, what pen is that?"

"It's a fountain pen."
"Yes, I KNOW -- what IS it?"
"Oh. It's a Monteverde...."

Ran into the guy a day or two later and we had a nice chat. Dunno if he's on here or not, but he said he generally has about 4 pens on him at any given time (I had seven up there with me, but the Pelikan M100, which had been inked up with Caroube de Chypre had run out of ink so it was back in the tent).

That sort of made up for the time a few weeks ago when I went to the antique mall where I'd gotten my first Esterbrook and one case that had a few pens (nothing worth buying or was overpriced) had them all labelled as "quill pens"....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth