Do you know what sha-pens are?

[mke]

Greetings from the land of the "sha-pen" (シャーペン in Japanese).

Found this information on the homepage of Mitsubishi Pencil.
"The first pencil produced in Japan dates back to the early Taisho era (1912-1926) and was invented by the late Tokuji Hayakawa, founder of the later household appliance manufacturer Sharp, who called the product "Ever Ready Sharp Pencil" and made it a hit."
Japanese always try to use two syllable words so they smoothed the word "Sharp pencil" into "sha-pen".

And Japanese are using these "sha-pens" a lot. Not like in Germany where they apparently have a whopping market share of 0.1% vs 65% for ballpens, 25% for fountain pens and 9.9% for rollerballs.

 

 

The picture shows a set from 0.3 - to 3 mm which I recently bought on Aliexpress' summer sale - from the top 0.5, 1.3, 0.9, 0.3, 2.0, 0.7 and 3.0 mm. But I also have a 0.2 mm sha-pen from Japan and a number of the "normal" ones with 0.5 and 0.7 mm leads. I heard that a Japanese company made prototypes for 0.1 mm leads but gave up because they couldn't produce leads stable enough for daily use.

[Mech-for-i]

Its a naming after the term sharp - pen which means mechanical pencils of any sort , why so cause Sharp ( the brand , yes that consumer electronic brand ) made the first ever Japanese manufactured mechanical pencil way way way back and actually the brand name refer exactly that

 

[mke]

The first official name of the pencil was Sharp Pencil, that is not something Japanese like to say - pronounced shapu penshiru in Japanese. They prefer to shorten everything into a two-syllable word.

So it became sha-pen.

 

Spaghetti becomes spa, pronounced "su-pa" in Japan, btw. There are many more such contractions.

 

--

More about the Sharp pencil:

https://design.sharp.co.jp/eng/design_column/a01_1915pencil

 

 

[Number99]

4 hours ago, mke said:

Japanese are using these "sha-pens" a lot. Not like in Germany where they apparently have a whopping market share of 0.1% vs 65% for ballpens, 25% for fountain pens and 9.9% for rollerballs.

0.1% share of what? Rollerballs?

What about the remaining 99.1%?

Japan has no concept of rollerball in writing instruments and similar writing instruments are treated as water-based ballpoint pens.

I hardly know anyone around me who uses mechanical pencils after entering university. From the standpoint of preventing record falsification, we do not use erasable writing instruments from the point of note-taking.

 

42 minutes ago, mke said:

Japanese like to say - pronounced shapu penshiru in Japanese. They prefer to shorten everything into a two-syllable word.

shyāpen is not a well-mannered word.

 

43 minutes ago, mke said:

Spaghetti becomes spa, pronounced "su-pa" in Japan, btw. There are many more such contractions.

The word pronounced supa means spa. The use of it for spaghetti is a product name for individual food companies or a unique menu item for restaurants.

Please do not use incorrect information to describe Japanese people in a strange way.

 

 

[Number99]

5 hours ago, mke said:

Greetings from the land of the "sha-pen" (シャーペン in Japanese).

Found this information on the homepage of Mitsubishi Pencil.
"The first pencil produced in Japan dates back to the early Taisho era (1912-1926) and was invented by the late Tokuji Hayakawa, founder of the later household appliance manufacturer Sharp, who called the product "Ever Ready Sharp Pencil" and made it a hit."
Japanese always try to use two syllable words so they smoothed the word "Sharp pencil" into "sha-pen".

And Japanese are using these "sha-pens" a lot. Not like in Germany where they apparently have a whopping market share of 0.1% vs 65% for ballpens, 25% for fountain pens and 9.9% for rollerballs.

 

 

The picture shows a set from 0.3 - to 3 mm which I recently bought on Aliexpress' summer sale - from the top 0.5, 1.3, 0.9, 0.3, 2.0, 0.7 and 3.0 mm. But I also have a 0.2 mm sha-pen from Japan and a number of the "normal" ones with 0.5 and 0.7 mm leads. I heard that a Japanese company made prototypes for 0.1 mm leads but gave up because they couldn't produce leads stable enough for daily use.

P.S.

I thought this was a strange story, but if everything is replaced with elementary and junior high school students, it makes sense.

They love erasers and shyāpen and enjoy playing with words.

However, elementary schools often prohibit bringing in shyāpen, because they are easily tired, because they reflect the income disparity of parents, because there are always children who claim theft when they lose them, and because suspected children are isolated.

Edited June 24, 2024 by Number99
Explanation added.

[mke]

8 hours ago, Number99 said:

Please do not use incorrect information to describe Japanese people in a strange way.

 

It is used like that even if you don't like it. Start educating Japanese TV and the young Japanese to use proper words according to your liking.

 

And don't forget to correct it out of Wikipedia:

https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/スパ

https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/シャープペンシル

Both is mentioned there. 

 

My advice: inform yourself before you answer on a thread.

 

 

[mke]

9 hours ago, Number99 said:

0.1% share of what? Rollerballs?

What about the remaining 99.1%?

 

Once more: I said marketshare, assuming that I didn't need to say marketshare of writing instruments.

ballpens 65%

fountain pens 25%

rollerballs 9.9%

mechanical pencils 0.1%

=> total 100%

 

9 hours ago, Number99 said:

Japan has no concept of rollerball in writing instruments and similar writing instruments are treated as water-based ballpoint pens.

 

You forgot the gel-ink pens.

The 'liquid-ink' type rollerball pens were introduced in 1963 by the Japanese company Ohto. The gel ink type rollerball pens were patented in 1982 by Sakura Color Products.

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ローラーボール

 

9 hours ago, Number99 said:

I hardly know anyone around me who uses mechanical pencils after entering university.

Among my colleagues, most use ballpens or rollerballs, followed by mechanical pencils, followed by fountain pens. I have no statistics, however.

[Mech-for-i]

Well well it all boils down to usage , for most who work in office environment it might seem erasable writing with a pencil of any sort having a disadvantage , however being an engineer myself , more often than not , on the field , at office or otherwise we draft, sketch , and draw with pencil precisely because it's erasable , making amendment, corrections and alike far easier and more legible to the reading end the same can be stated towards many workshop floor paperwork and then some

 

And as for shortening names , well it's not just Japanese , it's universal across most culture and languages , nicknames of any sort is not uncommon among fair amount of languages. English is no exception go read a Jane Austin novel , and then Sherlock Holmes, the text and wording are certainly more contextual and complex than today's like counterpart

 

The shortening of the term Sharp Pencils into sharp(s) no different