Alternative Names For Fountain Pens

[MKIM97]

I've noticed that many members here have had incidents where non-fountain pen users called our beloved writing instruments a different name, and that sometimes these 'alternative' names can be quite creative. What names have you encountered?

Edited June 23, 2013 by MKIM97

[GabrielleDuVent]

I've had the novelty of people referring to my pens as "knife pens". Otherwise, the most frequent one is calligraphy, and it's even listed so in many online shops that don't specialise in stationery (wal-mart, for instance).

 

I also had one French girl ask me if I was using a quill. My guess is she read Harry Potter.

[N2theBreach]

You have the options pretty well covered,min my experinece. The only one that I haven't heard is hipster (hipster pen) and that's probably because any one who knows me and knows what a hipster is knows I'm not one.

[MadAmos]

Mostly "fancy pen" with an occasional "ink pen", but mostly either they don't notice or at least don't say anything.

Edited June 23, 2013 by MadAmos

[ISW_Kaputnik]

The most common thing is not to comment on it at all. When they do, if they don't simply call it a pen, they are most likely to get it right and call it a fountain pen. Strange, but true. They may go on to say "that's for calligraphy, right?" but I don't know that I've ever heard someone call it a "calligraphy pen".

[MisterBoll]

Metal quill.

[Tom Aquinas]

An "Olde Farts Pen" !!!

[Freddy]

Willy the Wood..

 

Fred

[Nashten]

I had someone recently just call my FP "a writing utensil" because they couldn't figure out exactly what it was.

[legume]

"I love your calligraphy pen!" (with added bonus of calling my cursive handwriting calligraphy ) or more recently, "That's one of those ink pens, isn't it?" Why yes, this pen does indeed take ink.

[hot cocoa]

I got a "that's the coolest pen!" from two receptionists at different doctors' offices. So "cool pen" is my "other" vote.

 

For the record, the pens were a Kaweco Ice Sport in yellow and a Franklin Christoph Pocket 40.

[XiaoMG]

"pen" works pretty well. Nobody calls them anything special because they aren't anything special.

[inkstainedruth]

My husband (somewhat sarcastically) calls them my "fancy" pens, most recently this morning, while signing paperwork to buy a new minivan -- although for the carbon copy forms I had to break down and use the provided BP (oh, for a manifold nib!). I've also had a few people refer to them as "calligraphy pens" and gotten one or two comments of their being "old fashioned" (as in "I didn't know people still used those..."). But I've also gotten one or two people say "Nice pen!"

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Vendome]

I've trained my mates to use the correct term, "a writing instrument".

[Kelly G]

Ohhh, that's a real pen.

[NitroBobby]

Oh, you write with "those".