Mundane Pointless Poll Here: Pencils or Pens?

[Tzel]

Which do you prefer? Pencils or Pens? Does it depend on the situation?

[Booker57]

Pens,black ink only. At work, if I pick up a blue pen I'll drop it as soon as I notice it.

[PlanMan]

Pens - stick type (think Bic or PaperMate Stick) over felt tip or roller ball - I'm lefty and smear inks that don't dry instantly. And NO ERASERMATE, it feels terrible to write with, and looks like heck.

[Mauvaise]

Pens; roller or ball point; blue, black, red, purple ink .. just please don't give me a pencil. I hate them! I drove my teachers crazy in Jr. High and High School because I would do my math homework in pen. At least until the ordered me to stop. Ugh, pencils: hate 'em!

[ITR champion]

Pens, blue pens, haven't used a pencil voluntarily since 9th grade. I had a physcis teacher once who made us use pencil, so I had to buy a pack of 8 pencils just for that class.

[Nefarious Chipmunk]

I use pens all the time. I hate pencils. Can't stand them. I hate Scan-Tron tests for this very reason. Only pens for me, except...when I am doing math. When I am working on those pesky Integrations and such I have to use a pencil (automatic only, though). Don't know why this is. I suppose that it has something to do with when I was in 9th grade and my math teacher forced us to use pencil or we got no credit on the assignment. I don't know.

[Silver Fire]

Pens; black or blue ballpoint. I hate gel pens. You know the ones, the neon or pastel colors. And why do people feel the need to write their checks out with them? The orange ones especially, which are impossible to read.

[Fairy Princess Kitty]

I've recently acquired a pen fetish. I love pens, adore them, always carry around like 10-15 of them in different colors. I only have a couple pencils because a couple of my teachers will not accept any work if it isn't done in pencil.

Kitty

[Odieman]

Pens...nice big fat ones...I have lousy muscle control and my handwriting is neater with a big pen...I didn't say neat, just neater (at the Minot dopefest MsRobyn referred to it as "chickenscratch" which is what my teachers called it too.

Keith

[Lsura]

Pencils at work, being appropriate for an accountant-type.

Pens anywhere else, and whenever I can get away with it at work.

[waxteeth]

Pens only.

I hated using pencils in school because I have some sort of pencil/bone disorder.

When I use a pencil I can feel something from the contact of the pencil lead on the paper all the way to my teeth. It's sort of like fingernails on a chalkboard, but not nearly as intense.

In any event I hate using pencils.

When I was a teenager, I saw Where The Buffalo Roam and for about a year I insisted on using only bic medium point blue pens. (I did some funny stuff back then.)

[Sylkyn]

Pens. Black ink preferably, but will use blue ink, as long as it's dark. I also prefer roller ball types, with medium points. Years ago, I loved the Bic Bananas, being a medium point fan. Fine points grate on my nerves. And I despise magic marker type pens. I always feel like I am a little kid not trusted with "big kid markers" when I use them.

Pencils are OUT. I will NOT use them. I, too, got in trouble in school for insisting on using them in math class. Yeah, I caved, after much bitching on several teachers' parts, but even then I had to have the mechanical pencils. At least they felt like pens.

[racinchikki]

Pens. Blue. I don't know what brand I use, but they're clear plastic with blue rubber finger grips. They write beautifully.

[Czarcasm]

I like pens of all colors.



But they only let me use crayons here.

[The Red Menace]

Black, Pilot Rolling Ball, Extra Fine pens. Nothing else will do it for me. The only exception is when I'm working on a mathematical type problem for school, in which it becomes less feasible to simply cross out an offending word and rewrite it.

[snac]

Well, PENding a few more responses, I think we are reaching a consensus of sorts. The Eberhard Faber Co. should oPEN their eyes and declare their indePENdence from Madagascar graphite...oh, never mind.

I like pens too. Ballpoint, any color is fine. I usually have four or five in my pocket at any given time, and pencils don;t do so hot there; also I like to stick 'em behind my ear and that's a little dangerous when you have a freshly sharpened pencil back there.

Also, while I've got no problem with the feel of pencils, or the sound they make when they're sharp, a dull pencil scraping against a piece of paper is enough to bring gasps to my throat and tears to my eyes, or the other way around.Makes me shiver and wince just sitting here imagining it.

[fenrir]

I only use pencils at work.So i always have them laying around.I only use pens to write my bills out.And than they must be black.

[dodge_this]

Roller-ball pens with black ink for work. When I write in my journal it has to be with my Parker fountain pen. If I have to use a pencil then it's a traditional 2B. I hate hard leads and I loathe mechanical pencils.

[soulmurk]

Pencils all the way.

Maybe it's the way I write, but when I use a pen I always end up smearing the ink and getting it on my fingers.


And I like being able to erase what I just wrote.

[tshirts]

I do not have a single pencil in the house, haven't for 30 years.

I got out of the habit when I first got contact lenses, and the dust from sharpening them would make my eyes itch.

[tfnb34a]

I'm a strictly pencil man, Pentel® Quicker-Clicker™ Automatic Pencils to be exact. I prefer, for some reason, the traction I get from writing with a pencil and they aid me in writing extremely small. Pens feel like they move around too much.

Also, I'm tired of being discriminated against in this pen-dominated society. Just last semester, for example, I was forced to rewrite my entire chemistry lab notebook, for the mere reason that it was written in pencil. Is it that big of a deal to glance over something in pencil, when, in actuality, you're only taking data from the carbon copy. When will the world embrace the erasery-goodness of the pencil? WHEN!?

[Dark Lord Davidson]

Black pens only. It HAS to be a Bic medium-point black ink pen.

No stupid rubber-grip either.

[fish in the sky]

It totally depends on the situation for me.

If I'm reading a book and want to underline a passage or write a note in the margin, I MUST use a pencil, preferably a mechanical one. I go into conniptions when I see somebody writing in a book in pen. ::shudder::

For notetaking in classes I'll use either pen or pencil, whatever writing utensil I happen to reach first.

For writing in my journal, I HAVE to use a Pilot BetterGrip ball point pen, fine point, black ink, and journal-writing is the ONLY purpose to which these pens can be put. I will search for 15 minutes for another pen or a pencil before succumbing to using a journal-pen for some mundane task like a grocery list. It just feels so, so dirty, so _wrong_.

[Feynn]

There is absolutely nothing mundane or pointless about the instrument with which one chooses to put down their most intimate thoughts, ideas, or plain old ramblings.

There was just a thread about What Kind of Pen Do You Use? (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=62303) where quite a number of people expressed some very specific requirements for what they wrote with, myself included.

I am preferential to fountain pens and have begun collecting them as a hobby, in my humble opinion there is no finer writing tool than a well made fountain pen. I just picked up a forty year old Sheaffer at the flea market for $5.00. I cleaned it, dropped in a new cartridge, and have a pen that will out-write and surely outlast any of these new fangled gel writers.

I have a Zebra mechanical pencil and a Steadtler multi which has a pencil with two ballpoints and a hi-lighter that I use in my day-planner.

Mundane indeed!

[Tzel]

Me, I usually favor pens. Black is preferred. I feel I write more intelligently in black ink.

I go through phases of liking pencils, but I could never stand mechanical pencils. They're convenient to not sharpen, but they are just generally a PITA otherwise. I don't like how small the leads are, especially.

I used to have a designated journal pen, but recently I haven't. (Though recently, I have made much more progress in keeping a journal maintained. I never had the steam for the long haul before, but I'm definitely filling up some pages.)

This thread has reminded me of the only fountain pen I ever owned, which a friend gave me in sixth grade. I used it for a while and liked it. I'd like to get another one.

[Pammipoo]

Pens. Only pens. Let me rephrase that...only pretty pens. Pink, and red, and purple, and green...none of that black and blue crap for me. One of my bosses told me recently that if I got certified, I'd have to get real pens..."You can't be a good manager with pink ink Pam!" How did I respond? I went to Walmart, and found the brghtest shade of pink that anyone's ever seen, and insisted on writing everything in it. Well, I had to shift to green for my deposits, the bank started to get pissed. But otherwise, pink is the only way to go.

[Lego]

I like pencils better than pens. The line on the paper looks better, and its erasable. I also like fine-tipped black markers, and I actually write with them a lot now. Never a true pen, though. The line looks too ugly.

[Pies 'R' Squared]

Pencil in my vote for pens, please. I tend to be in a hurry when I write, especially when taking notes in a class. The friction from a pencil on paper is just too much; it slows me down.

[DAVEW0071]

Black rollerball pens. Nothing else feels better or looks better. I've disliked any other color ink since high school.

Most of the writing I do by hand is for the record (i.e. checks, business forms), so using pencil doesn't make sense. I'll use a pencil just to scratch something down when I know I'm either going to transfer it to a more permanent medium or am going to discard it right away, such as a phone number. But I only use pencils in earnest when I'm doing some work around the house and have to measure and mark.

[Tabithina]

I'm happy if I have any writing instrument at all. My family can't leave my pen/pencil stash alone. I have abominably bad handwriting, so I prefer to type, but if I have to write, I prefer pen. When I am sketching jewelry designs and making notes about them, I like to use pencil, because I change my mind a lot as I go along.:)

:: Now where's that damn pencil...?::

[FairyChatMom]

Pens to make notes, pencils for sketching.

I like the pens with the cushy grips - they pamper my delicate fingers... but I prefer old-time pencils to mechanical.

However, the only way my writing is legible to the world at large is via keyboard - it goes along with my life-long contention that creative people don't have time to be neat!

[bare]

I'll second.

Pentel .05mm automatic pencil only.

Side benefit: Great ear tickler/scratcher.

[Deiket]

Pens. I have a pen fetish. I just recently spent about $25 on pens. How sad is that? I'm writing this story in one of my notebooks and I started out using pencil for the first page or so and now it's all smudged and really hard to read. My favorite pens are these sparkle pens that I just bought. They're very nifty....

[brachyrhynchos]

For taking raw data in the field: pencil. (I was taught to the classic biological journal notes with a rapidograph pen which was slightly more convenient than using a chisel and stone. Damn things would clog up and there was no easy way to clean them without ink ending up everywhere.) If later modifications occur, they go in as ink, with the original entry unaltered (sacrosanct).

Cold-temp pens for the Revco items.

Regular pens for everything else.

[Eo Echo]

I use Bic clic-stic pens exclusively.

[Tzel]

Originally posted by DAVEW0071
or am going to discard it right away, such as a phone number.

You must be a real hit with the ladies, Dave.

[Ringo]

Unless the task has a specific demand for one or the other, I use whatever's handy. Certain things require one or the other. In past years when I was marketing I used Cross pens, but quit after I'd broken several. Now I use whatever they're buying at the office; which, upon examining the contents of my shirt pocket, turns out to be a Pilot Explorer (black, fine point). It's OK, but hard to take apart and they don't last very long.

I used mechanical pencils for years but in recent years I've switched back to Col-Erase Mirado's in #s 1, 2, 2.5 and 3.

And Col-Erase is it for colored pencils; I use mostly Carmine Red, Blue, Lt. Blue, Green, Lt. Green, Vermilion, Yellow, Terra Cotta, Brown, Tuscan Red, Violet, Orange and Rose.

And brachy, I began my career with rapidographs and you're right, they're a difficult writing instrument to use. We never used them for field notes, but had to use them for end products. All hail computers; they did away with rapidographs! People from about their early thirties and younger in my field don't know what they are.

[Hanna]

I love mechanical pencils...I dislike pens. ::mutters something about fear of committment::

Why do I have to freakin' scan everything...my new pencil I just bought yesterday (http://people.mn.mediaone.net/patti76/SAVE0011.JPG).