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Thread: How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive - Interesting article

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    Default How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive - Interesting article


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    Default Re: How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive - Interesting article

    My hand writing was never any good, no Nuns beat my palm swollen like my mother's great handwriting.
    From 4th to 10th grade every year my fountain pen and jotter were stolen, and no one would lower themselves to steal a Skillcraft. So in 10th grade I learned if you kept the top of your Bic in your hand, it didn't get stolen.

    My hand writing using a ball point got worse and worse until I had to print. Then came the day when I couldn't read my own printing.
    Some years later I got back into fountain pens.....and my Chicken Scratch improved to Rooster Scratch.

    A ball point has to be pushed so requires a strong grip........and one's writing suffers because of it. Ball points are work, so are not fun.

    A fountain pen nib tip floats in a tiny puddle of ink, so no force is required....which can take years to learn............the hand pain is gone, the hand and arm fatigue is gone.
    And I get to play with a big 64 crayon box of colors.

    Even with out practice one can still buy that old fashioned fountain pen script....a semi-flex or semi-flex oblique nib or a stubbed or CI nib.
    I wonder how many would journal, using just a ball point?
    Last edited by BoBo Olson; November 17th, 2021 at 01:03 PM.

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    Default Re: How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive - Interesting article

    And another that was sent to me a few days ago: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2...-ballpoint-pen

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    Default Re: How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive - Interesting article

    """The new ballpoint was clean and convenient."""

    No it wasn't .... and anyone with some fifties BPs will tell you of rings of ink at the tip smearing things. Lots of times the tip smeared. And the smear didn't wash out either.
    I remember in 3rd grade doing surgery on a BP in class with my pocket knife to make it click right. (This was Texas in B&W TV days when a young man who could take his single shot .22 and kill the neighbor's rattle snakes was trusted by the teacher not to be a fool.....Oh, have times changed.

    It had advantages, I remember my 7th summer morning ever so clear, my Pa had one of those government issue black Skillcraft in his fatigues instead of the family Snorkel.

    I asked why....after all The Snorkel was the King of Pens, and we had one.

    He explained, he could write in and through grease of a diesel engine repair tag of a landing craft that took the troops and supplies to the bombing and gunnery range base on Matatgorta Island with it, and even wrote a bit upside down....a bit... and if it broke or got lost who cared......so that was my introduction to a ball point...I'd seen them but not close up.

    Some day real close to that I actually saw him write on a small yellow repair tag on one of the engines in the engine room, but it wasn't even greasy...what a let down.

    My Pelikan 455 is such a '50's BP. As are the following....anyone who grew up as ball points were perfected in someone's pocket knows the feeling of the quirks of something that almost , but not quite working.


    Is Ok...as little kids we mostly had to use pencils as was...........but the family being in the Military, we got free Skillcraft ball points...so one must always think the military and the Government workers had much to blame for almost killing off the fountain pen.

    The Snorkel was used to write checks and letters, not a ball point.

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    Default Re: How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive - Interesting article

    I was in elementary school during the years when fountain pens ceased to be the primary writing instrument. Or at least that was the case in the United States. In England, "older" (as in adults) people often used fountain pens, and in Germany, we were required to use a fountain pen, resorting to a ballpoint pen only if we made an error and used an ink erasing compound to remove it. The erasing compound (it tasted like salt and vinegar) made it impossible to write on that part of the paper with a fountain pen, so we were allowed to use a ballpoint to write over that area. If I hadn't attended German schools in 4th through 6th grades, I might never have written with a fountain pen.

    I remember the horrible ball point pens available courtesy of the US government at the time (1967-1970). They had a black body, engraved with "Property of U.S. Government", and they ran out of ink incredibly quickly. The only thing good about them was that they were free.

    I never really liked ballpoint pens, but that's what was easily available. I didn't like felt tip pens because the tips splayed too quickly. I used pencil a lot, especially drafting pencils. Once gel pens were widely available, I switched, and that's what I use for most ordinary things. More to the point, I switched to Pilot G2 gel pens. My fountain pens are for enjoyment.

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    Default Re: How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive - Interesting article

    TFarnon,
    A black Skillcraft ball point is what you had....and that was a better pen that the '50's, it no longer had the ink ring at the ball or the tip of it smeared with sticky ball point ink.

    It was assembled by blind people and we thought we were going them a favor by using them and giving them a job...............no one told us of them working for slave labor wages.

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    Default Re: How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive - Interesting article

    I don't doubt that the pens were assembled by blind people for basically prison wages, even though these people had done nothing to warrant prison wages. They were still dreadful pens. I preferred using my fountain pen, as cantankerous as it might be given that it was a very inexpensive pen. There was no way my parents would have sprung for a Montblanc or a high-end Pelikan for me. Not that I wanted anything like that--as a 4th-6th grader in the late 1960s, I wanted something bright and colorful. I must have switched back to ball point pens when we returned to the United States in 1970, because I don't remember discount stores like K-Mart carrying them. I probably used pencil more than anything else in the United States until I got to High School, when I have a faint memory of using ball point pens for a lot of my writing.

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