|
20 Things You Didn't Know About... Pencils
Erasing with bread crumbs, pencil as murder weapon, and more
1 There is no risk of lead poisoning if you stab yourself (or someone else) with a pencil because it contains no lead—just a mixture of clay and graphite. Still, pencil wounds carry a risk of infection for the stabees, lawsuits for stabbers. |
Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About... Pencils
2 And bad juju for anyone linked to Watergate: In his autobiography, G. Gordon Liddy describes finding John Dean (whom he despised for “disloyalty”) alone in a room. Spotting sharpened pencils on a desk, Liddy fleetingly considered driving one into Dean’s throat.
|
Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About... Pencils
3 Graphite, a crystallized form of carbon, was discovered near Keswick, England, in the mid-16th century. An 18th-century German chemist, A. G. Werner, named it, sensibly enough, from the Greek graphein, “to write.”
|
Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About... Pencils
4 The word “pencil” derives from the Latin penicillus, meaning—not so sensibly—“little tail.”
|
Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About... Pencils
5 Pencil marks are made when tiny graphite flecks, often just thousandths of an inch wide, stick to the fibers that make up paper.
|
Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About... Pencils
6 Got time to kill? The average pencil holds enough graphite to draw a line about 35 miles long or to write roughly 45,000 words. History does not record anyone testing this statistic.
|
Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About... Pencils
7 The Greek poet Philip of Thessaloníki wrote of leaden writing instruments in the first century B.C., but the modern pencil, as described by Swiss naturalist Conrad Gesner, dates only to 1565.
|
Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About... Pencils
8 French pencil boosters include Nicolas-Jacques Conté, who patented a clay-and-graphite manufacturing process in 1795; Bernard Lassimone, who patented the first pencil sharpener in 1828; and Therry des Estwaux, who invented an improved mechanical sharpener in 1847.
|
Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About... Pencils
9 French researchers also hit on the idea of using caoutchouc, a vegetable gum now known as rubber, to erase pencil marks. Until then, writers removed mistakes with bread crumbs.
|
Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About... Pencils
10 Most pencils sold in America today have eraser tips, while those sold in Europe usually have none. Are Europeans more confident scribblers?
|
| All times are GMT -5. The time now is 10:36 PM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7 © Copyright 2000-2012. PatsFans.com Is a Partner of USA TODAY Sports Digital Properties. This site is owned and operated by I&K Internet Design Enterprises, LLC
Copyright ©2000 - 2013, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0 PL2
The opinions posted in this forum do not necessarily reflect the opinions of our staff at PatsFans.com or USA Today.
We are not affiliated with the New England Patriots™ or the NFL™. The Photo Used In the header was taken by Ian Logue.