# Do you know what an "ink blotter" is? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 26, 2007, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-an-ink-blotter-is/413217 "2007-07-26T13:21:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2007, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-an-ink-blotter-is/413217/41 "2007-07-26T17:08:44Z")
Apparently I didn’t know either. I thought they were those padded sticks you pressed against the type on an old printing press to spread the ink inbetween each pressing. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2007, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-an-ink-blotter-is/413217/42 "2007-07-26T17:16:12Z")
[QUOTE=Annie] [You want it. You know you do.](http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/7830/) [/QUOTE] Yes. Yes I do. ---
**Author:** ![Dunawake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dunawake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunawake)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2007, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-an-ink-blotter-is/413217/43 "2007-07-26T17:26:51Z")
Avoiding reading through the thread to taint my knowledge, but I don’t really know what an ink blotter is. I just thought it was some particular type of paper, but beyond that I haven’t any idea. I’m 24. ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2007, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-an-ink-blotter-is/413217/44 "2007-07-26T17:34:15Z")
I’m 40, and I think it’s time we mentioned **mimeographs.** I think I got high off the smell a few times when I was six. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2007, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-an-ink-blotter-is/413217/45 "2007-07-26T17:49:33Z")
HA! This thread made me laugh. I started reading it and thought: _“Those silly kids these days! How could they never have heard of an ink blotter? how could they not know what one is! HA! I laugh in their general direction! EVERYONE knows that an ink blotter is that large, flat paper covered thing with corners to hold the paper in place that sits on a desk underneath everything else!!!”_ Boy do _ **I** _ feel dumb! I guess an ink blotter is not the same as a desk blotter, hmm? ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2007, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-an-ink-blotter-is/413217/46 "2007-07-26T17:49:34Z")
[QUOTE=Philster] I’m 40, and I think it’s time we mentioned **mimeographs.** I think I got high off the smell a few times when I was six. [/QUOTE] That one I think I know what it is. Um… some sort of sheet (purple? the writing, I mean) that aids in making copies - but they’re a little different from photo copies? They worked carbon paper somehow, but with a machine? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2007, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-an-ink-blotter-is/413217/47 "2007-07-26T17:50:41Z")
[QUOTE=Philster] I’m 40, and I think it’s time we mentioned **mimeographs.** I think I got high off the smell a few times when I was six. [/QUOTE] Is that the blue copy stuff? I remember that in grammar school. I’m 32. I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen a mimeograph machine. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2007, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-an-ink-blotter-is/413217/48 "2007-07-26T17:56:13Z")
[QUOTE=Philster] I’m 40, and I think it’s time we mentioned **mimeographs.** I think I got high off the smell a few times when I was six. [/QUOTE] Mmmmm. Mimeograph smell. I remember that. Ya know, I think the smell of that made me FEEL like I was learning something in school. Some day, the current younger generation will receive blank stares at the mention of cellphones and laptops. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2007, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-an-ink-blotter-is/413217/49 "2007-07-26T17:58:28Z")
I still have a few pages of carbon paper someplace. It made a copy of a typed document before copiers were common. I have a 3-sided draftsman’s ruler, for manually scaling down dimensions for a drawing. I might still have an oil can spout, for opening and pouring metal-topped motor oil cans. Now all the oil is in plastic bottles. Ever see a cream separator spoon? When I was a tot, whole un-homogenized milk was delivered in quart bottles with the bottle necked down into a globe at the top. The cream would rise into that globe. To pour off just the cream, you’d use a little spoon, shaped like a ladle with a straight-up handle. The bowl of it blocked the neck of the bottle, so you could get the cream and no milk. We started getting homogenized milk not long after that. A lot of people dried their clothes on clotheslines, and some used trouser stretchers. They were aluminum frames that slid down into both legs of a pair of pants. When dry, the pants were more or less pressed. ---
**Author:** ![Frosted\_Glass](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frosted_glass/32/3926_2.png) [@Frosted\_Glass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frosted_Glass)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2007, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-an-ink-blotter-is/413217/50 "2007-07-26T18:03:41Z")
I am 23 and I knew what an ink blotter looks like but I only have a vague idea of what it does. After reading through the thread I see that I was mostly right but I doubt that I could show you how one works. **h.sapiens** , you will be happy to know that when we are drafting in architecture studio, we still use Rapidographs. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2007, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-an-ink-blotter-is/413217/51 "2007-07-26T18:10:23Z")
Mimeographs worked like this. The original was typed onto a special sheet that was cut by the typewriter letter hammers. That sheet is clamped onto a drum that oozed ink through the pierced letters, onto the printed sheets. Some mimeos had motors, but many were hand cranked. The solvent in the ink got some people kinda loopy. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![FatBaldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecd19e/32.png) [@FatBaldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FatBaldGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2007, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-an-ink-blotter-is/413217/52 "2007-07-26T18:13:45Z")
[QUOTE=elfkin477] That one I think I know what it is. Um… some sort of sheet (purple? the writing, I mean) that aids in making copies - but they’re a little different from photo copies? They worked carbon paper somehow, but with a machine? [/QUOTE] Not exactly carbon paper, but what was called “mimeo masters” or more commonly “ditto masters”. It was a sheet of white paper bound to a back sheet covered with purple ink. When you wrote or typed on the white sheet, the purple would be transferred to the back side of the sheet, giving a reverse image. Then you removed the white sheet and fastened it to the drum of the mimeograph. As the drum rotated, blank sheets of paper were pressed against the drum and an alcohol based solution transferred the purple image onto the blank pages. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2007, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-an-ink-blotter-is/413217/53 "2007-07-26T18:19:14Z")
I had a rental when my car was fixed. My spoiled children had never seen crank windows. They also recently discovered dial telephones and we keep trying to tell them what life was like with five channels and no Tivo, but I don’t think they really believe us - people couldn’t possibly have been so primative. ---
**Author:** ![Ronald\_C.Semone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cc9497/32.png) [@Ronald\_C.Semone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ronald_C.Semone)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2007, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-an-ink-blotter-is/413217/54 "2007-07-26T19:43:05Z")
Do people under 30 know what an IBM card is? Those rectangular cards punched with little holes that were used in a counter-sorter. A counter-sorter? One of those machines used to read IBM cards. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2007, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-an-ink-blotter-is/413217/55 "2007-07-26T20:02:34Z")
[QUOTE=Ronald C. Semone] Do people under 30 know what an IBM card is? Those rectangular cards punched with little holes that were used in a counter-sorter. A counter-sorter? One of those machines used to read IBM cards. [/QUOTE] I had a boss that refused to allow people to write JCL for their jobs online. He made them use the card punch. He finally relented (this was in the late-'80s I think) when IBM told him they would no longer support the card readers. ---
**Author:** ![SanibelMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@SanibelMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanibelMan)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2007, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-an-ink-blotter-is/413217/56 "2007-07-26T20:05:32Z")
I remember mimeographs from elementary school. We called them the “purple ditto sheets,” and I remember my teacher hand-cranking the drum to make the copies. We only got actual Xerox copies for very important sheets. This was in the early 90’s at a private school in Cincinnati. My dad showed my 4-year-old son how LP’s work while my son was staying with them a few weeks ago. Apparently, my son is now quite the ABBA fan. And for the record, my year-old car has crank windows and my kitchen still has a corded phone. But I’m 23 and I had no idea what an ink blotter was. (I was thinking of an ink pad, like you would use for fingerprints.) ---
**Author:** ![Hugh\_Mongoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8dc957/32.png) [@Hugh\_Mongoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hugh_Mongoose)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2007, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-an-ink-blotter-is/413217/57 "2007-07-26T20:42:11Z")
[QUOTE=h.sapiens] I’m a graphic designer, and I’m sure there are a lot of things I used to use 15 or so years ago that would be completely foreign to the younger designers I work with now. Rapidograph pens, adhesive wax, rub-down Letraset type, ruling tape, stat machines, etc. [/QUOTE] Believe it or not, aside from adhesive wax and stat machines, we used all of those in the Basic Studio Skills and Intro to Graphic Design classes at Kent State. I know that as recently as 2005 they still had the students using rubylith, rapidographs, letraset and such. My first Graphic Design teacher told me, as he was showing us how to use these lovely tools, “If you ever find yourself in a job where they ask you to use any of these, quit. Immediately.” ---
**Author:** ![MrSquishy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9e5f3/32.png) [@MrSquishy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrSquishy)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2007, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-an-ink-blotter-is/413217/58 "2007-07-26T21:55:57Z")
[QUOTE=I Love Me, Vol. I] HA! This thread made me laugh. I started reading it and thought: _“Those silly kids these days! How could they never have heard of an ink blotter? how could they not know what one is! HA! I laugh in their general direction! EVERYONE knows that an ink blotter is that large, flat paper covered thing with corners to hold the paper in place that sits on a desk underneath everything else!!!”_ Boy do _ **I** _ feel dumb! I guess an ink blotter is not the same as a desk blotter, hmm? [/QUOTE] This is exactly what I did too. 35, FTR. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2007, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-an-ink-blotter-is/413217/59 "2007-07-27T00:04:54Z")
[QUOTE=Ronald C. Semone] Do people under 30 know what an IBM card is? Those rectangular cards punched with little holes that were used in a counter-sorter. A counter-sorter? One of those machines used to read IBM cards. [/QUOTE] Probably not. I’m 30 and the only reason I have any idea at all what one is is because my father told me about learning how to use them for a class he took a long time ago. ---
**Author:** ![BiblioCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@BiblioCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BiblioCat)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2007, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-an-ink-blotter-is/413217/60 "2007-07-27T02:04:11Z")
[QUOTE=Philster] I’m 40, and I think it’s time we mentioned **mimeographs.** I think I got high off the smell a few times when I was six. [/QUOTE] There was a scene showing just that experience in _Fast Times At Ridgemont High_. It came out in 1982, the same year I graduated. 🆒 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-an-ink-blotter-is/413217.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-an-ink-blotter-is/413217.md?page=4)