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Calling It An "ink" Pen


Solitaire146

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I've heard a couple of people refer to fountain pens as "ink" pens. It struck me as odd at first given that most pens, by definition, involve ink as the writing mechanism. Has anyone else heard this term used before? Is it a regional or cultural thing?

Edited by Solitaire100
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I'd be interested to know how they refer to other types of pens: "paint pens"?

Vintage. Cursive italic. Iron gall.

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I googled paint MARKER because i know they actually exist (yes i was trying to be glib)

 

This came up As the first hit...

https://canada.michaels.com/en/paint-and-painting-supplies/paint-pens/845162977

 

So that’s a thing...

 

But yeah “ink pen” sounds like something the Department of Redundancy Department came up with

:P

Just give me the Parker 51s and nobody needs to get hurt.

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In the 1950s and 1960s I heard this term from time to time. The users were apparently referring to pens getting ink from a bottle or a cartridge, as opposed to a ballpoint. I don't remember rollerballs being in use back then. I am 71, by the way.

Edited by pajaro

"Don't hurry, don't worry. It's better to be late at the Golden Gate than to arrive in Hell on time."
--Sign in a bar and grill, Ormond Beach, Florida, 1960.

 

 

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I googled paint MARKER because i know they actually exist (yes i was trying to be glib)

 

This came up As the first hit...

https://canada.michaels.com/en/paint-and-painting-supplies/paint-pens/845162977

 

So that’s a thing...

 

But yeah “ink pen” sounds like something the Department of Redundancy Department came up with

:P

 

Nothing to do with paint pens. Maybe you are too young to have heard this "ink pen" term. Back in the day some people used it to refer to a fountain pen. I don't know how they thought of a ballpoint. Everyone back in the 50s and 60s knew what they meant. Now it's a dated term.

"Don't hurry, don't worry. It's better to be late at the Golden Gate than to arrive in Hell on time."
--Sign in a bar and grill, Ormond Beach, Florida, 1960.

 

 

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Nothing to do with paint pens. Maybe you are too young to have heard this "ink pen" term. Back in the day some people used it to refer to a fountain pen. I don't know how they thought of a ballpoint. Everyone back in the 50s and 60s knew what they meant. Now it's a dated term.

A ballpoint pen was called a 'Biro' in most of the English speaking world or 'ballpoint pen' in the USA. We have to remember that biros only came into use in the late 1940s. Before biros came along a fountain pen was called a 'pen'. There was no need for distinction. And yes, at 72 I'm old enough to have been there, done that, and by the grace of God, still around to remember it.

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I ran across this phrase just last week, at an antiques mall a couple of hours east and north of me. One of the booths had two "ink pens with arrow holders" (that's what the tags said B)) -- turned out to be a black 51 Aerometric and a black 51 Special.

No, I didn't buy them -- I don't need another black 51.... :rolleyes: Price for the Aero seemed fairly decent; not sure about the 51 Special (more than I paid for my Burgundy one, but that was also about 7 or 8 years ago at that point).

Also saw a few Wearevers, what I think was a Sheaffer No Nonsense, something that had a warped barrel end or blind cap, what I think was a Sheaffer "school pen", some 3rd tier (?) brand called "New Banker" (lever filler but I didn't know enough about it). And, well, a "Dupont" lever-filler that I couldn't look at because the guy at the counter couldn't get the case open -- he had several different keys for that dealer, and two fit but wouldn't turn. He even had me try, but I didn't have any better luck getting the case unlocked....

The woman working the counter also seemed to be calling them "ink pens"....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

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Nothing to do with paint pens. Maybe you are too young to have heard this "ink pen" term. Back in the day some people used it to refer to a fountain pen. I don't know how they thought of a ballpoint. Everyone back in the 50s and 60s knew what they meant. Now it's a dated term.

Well i am younger. My parents are in their early 70s

And i grew up in the 80s and 90s where a ballpoint was just called a pen. No qualifier needed.

I expect an ink pen comes from people saying something like:

 

No, get me a pen. A real pen. That uses INK!

 

In frustration after another ballpoint failure :)

 

A ballpoint pen was called a 'Biro' in most of the English speaking world or 'ballpoint pen' in the USA. We have to remember that biros only came into use in the late 1940s. Before biros came along a fountain pen was called a 'pen'. There was no need for distinction. And yes, at 72 I'm old enough to have been there, done that, and by the grace of God, still around to remember it.

In Canada they are called ballpoints. Or as i already stated: a pen. :P

Just give me the Parker 51s and nobody needs to get hurt.

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It seems to me that I do hear the term "ink pen" still from time to time. If it's rare, that might be because it's rare for most people even to remember that there are such things as fountain pens.

"So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do."

 

- Benjamin Franklin

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It seems to me that I do hear the term "ink pen" still from time to time. If it's rare, that might be because it's rare for most people even to remember that there are such things as fountain pens.

Not remember fountain pens? When fountain pen nibs are seen in logos? When they are seen in Looney Tunes/Warner Bros/Bugs Bunny cartoons? When diplomats and presidents and prime ministers use them to sign important documents of state and treaties--right there on live tv?

 

That just blows my mind that people today don't know fountain pens exist.

 

Aren't they paying attention?

 

Wow. Just ... wow.

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Then again, I'm the weirdo who hits the pause button to read the titles on book spines behind people on tv or the movies or zoom or whatever. To say nothing of trying to make out their stationery supplies if I get a shot of their desk.

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Not remember fountain pens? When fountain pen nibs are seen in logos? When they are seen in Looney Tunes/Warner Bros/Bugs Bunny cartoons? When diplomats and presidents and prime ministers use them to sign important documents of state and treaties--right there on live tv?

 

That just blows my mind that people today don't know fountain pens exist.

 

Aren't they paying attention?

 

Wow. Just ... wow.

No, most people do not pay attention.

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No, most people do not pay attention.

 

Most people don´t pay attention in WRITING INSTRUMENTS..really..but when people do..we realised that there are A LOT OF fountain pens out there... :thumbup:

Edited by Mr.Rene
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My mother in law (deceased) referred to a fountain pen as an ink pen and indicated she always had. She refered to a dip pen as a pen. When she was young they still had bottles of ink in their desks in special holders and dip pens to write with once they were past the early grades when they used pencils. She called ballpoint pens ballpoints or simply a pen. I don't recal her ever using or saying anything about rollerball pens. She refered to a fiber tipped pen as a marker. And, I know she had no knowledge of cartridge fill fountain pens. She thought they all were button or lever filled from bottles of ink.

 

While she actually was born in 1932 she lived in a small town or a rural farm her entire life. The man she would marry wooed her on horseback. Thinking about other aspects of her life and her speach patterns I am reminded that what we often think of as current for a given time is actuall only current for a specific place in time and so apparently anachronistic terms such as ink pen may have survived in some locations long past their use in others.

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In contrast to an ink pencil.

You will be referring to the Onoto Ink Pencil of the early 1920s, no doubt?

X

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in my youth in the 50s and 60s the names used were:

 

Ballpoint - Biro

 

Dip pen (in lower grades in primary school) - ink pen

 

Fountain pen - fountain pen.

 

Boomers rule!

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