[QUOTE=WhyNot]
Er, okay, now I have a young whippersnapper question…
What’s the difference between a fountain pen and a steel-nib pen? I would have (ignorantly) used them interchangeably. And does a quill have a nib? I thought it was just a feather sliced diagonally and with a slit on the bottom. Y’know, shaped like the nib on a fountain pen, more or less.
(I’m 32, BTW. Old enough to have a son who once pointed out a jukebox which held, “big giant huge black CD’s, Mommy!”)
[/QUOTE]
A fountain pen has a reserve of ink built into the pen, which slowly supplies ink to the nib. The steel-nib pens that I’m talking about are just a nib on the end of a stick about the size of a pencil: you have to dip the nib into an ink well every word or two. With a quill, the nib is the part of the feather that has been cut into shape to write with.
[QUOTE=Giles]
A fountain pen has a reserve of ink built into the pen, which slowly supplies ink to the nib. The steel-nib pens that I’m talking about are just a nib on the end of a stick about the size of a pencil: you have to dip the nib into an ink well every word or two. With a quill, the nib is the part of the feather that has been cut into shape to write with.
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[QUOTE=WhyNot]
Without looking anything up or reading any replies, I think it’s
A piece of absorbent paper used to suck up extra ink from fountain pens. I’ve read about them in books, but never seen or used it. The way it works in my head is that you write and the ink isn’t all the way dry but you need to fold or stack the paper, so you lay a piece of ink blotter paper over it and press lightly (without wriggling it, I assume, or it would get all smeary) and the blotter absorbs the excess ink. Didn’t some people also do this with sand of some sort?
Did I get it right?
[/QUOTE]
Yes. There was also this stuff called “pounce”, which was cuttlefish bone ground to powder. Same idea.
I know what they are, from reading all those mystery books where the detective looks in the wastepaper to find the old blotting paper and then reads it backwards to find some impressive clue.
I’ve since seen actual ink blotters, but they were all in the context of historical objects, not things that were still in use.
If an ink blotter is a piece of paper that you “shake off” some extra ink onto, what the hell is that “rocking thing” with a handle on top?
I use a fountain pen from time to time, and when I’ve just filled it, I need to shake a little ink off the nib. I just use a couple of sheets of newspaper. I don’t know what that rocker is used for.
[/QUOTE]
No, you don’t “shake off” the ink onto the blotter, you press the blotter against the paper after you have written on it to absorb the excess ink.
Apparently I don’t know what an ink blotter is. I thought it was the ‘placemat’ thing you put down on the desk to protect your desk’s wood from being written into when you press too hard.
[QUOTE=StinkyBurrito]
Apparently I don’t know what an ink blotter is. I thought it was the ‘placemat’ thing you put down on the desk to protect your desk’s wood from being written into when you press too hard.
[/QUOTE]
Well, if that placemat has a sheet of blotting paper on top, then it’s an ink blotter. However, ink blotter do come in other shapes.
[QUOTE=Yllaria]
Are slide projectors old fogie things now?
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My sister still has an old carousel slide projector. My dad took a bunch of slides ‘back in the day’ and that’s how we always looked at them.
We still have film strips at the preschool where I teach. We’ll pull it out on rainy days and show one - most of them have books-on-tape o go with them.
The kids think it’s just amazing.
I knew what an ink blotter was. Guess that’s what I get for being a reader.
StinkyBurrito, what you’re refering to is a desk blotter.
[QUOTE=Trunk]
. . . what the hell is that “rocking thing” with a handle on top?
[/QUOTE]
The rocking thing holds a strip of blotting paper, which you can’t see in the picture because it’s on the bottom. You rock the blotter, which rocks the strip of blotting paper over the writing. You have to be careful to rock only once, or to not shift position at all for the second rock. If you shift position, the ink that’s newly transferred to the blotter can retransfer back to the paper in new locations. Not good.
After the strip has picked up a certain amount of ink, it’s replaced. Same blotter, ever changing strips.
No one watches old movies? It is a pretty standard feature of movies about the nineteenth century and earlier that once a contract has been signed, the clerk or lawyer grabs a rocking blotter and dries off the signatures.
The huge square that covers a desk to absorb spilled ink is generally called a desk blotter while the term ink blotter is used to identify the handled device rocked over wet ink.
I’ve never actually seen one in real life, but I’m aware of what they look like and were used for. I did know a kid a year younger than me (so he’d be 23 now) that exclusively wrote with a fountain pen in high school, but he just blotted it with a sheet of ordinary paper.
This is what I thought an ink blotter was. It seems they’re properly referred to as “desk blotters,” hence my confusion. I’ve never seen anything like the rocking/stamp blotter looking thingie.
[QUOTE=tomndebb]
No one watches old movies? It is a pretty standard feature of movies about the nineteenth century and earlier that once a contract has been signed, the clerk or lawyer grabs a rocking blotter and dries off the signatures.
The huge square that covers a desk to absorb spilled ink is generally called a desk blotter while the term ink blotter is used to identify the handled device rocked over wet ink.
[/QUOTE]
I’d use “ink blotter” to describe both things, since they both are intended to blot ink.
[QUOTE=Anaamika]
I’m 31. And I know vaguely what one is, but have never actually seen one - read about it in a ton of books, is all.
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I am 38 this August and Im on the same boat as Anaamika. I sort know about some popular items from the 30’s or 40’s because I am very close to my godfather, who is now 85. But. If it wasn’t from him, I would probably have cursory knowledge based on some of the history books I read in HS and college. Also, from watching flicks from that era.
I am not suprised if a teen or early 20 youth doesn’t know what an ink blotter. I have a hard time sometimes trying to explain early computer programs such as WP 5.0 to 'em.
[QUOTE=Atomicktom]
I also (gasp) remember when phones came with cords (although I drove by a guy the other day who was talking on a car phone that had a cord, and I laughed for about ten minutes - ohmigod, I thought, he must be a time traveler).
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[QUOTE=StinkyBurrito]
Apparently I don’t know what an ink blotter is. I thought it was the ‘placemat’ thing you put down on the desk to protect your desk’s wood from being written into when you press too hard.
[/QUOTE]
That’s what I thought it was too, but all the google images are of metal things, none of which looks familiar in the slightest. If not for Yllaria’s explaination, I’d be completely confused. If people in their 30s don’t really know what one is, I guess you can’t expect a 22-year-old to.
Whynot, the 3-6 year olds I worked with a few years ago called the records “The Big CDs” Hey, at least they recognized that they play music!
I’m 28 and I know what it is. I worked at an art supply store for many years. The store also was a big graphic design supplier, but the computer revolution destroyed that portion of the business just before I started. I still had people occationally ask for ink blotters. You can still get blotting paper there, but that’s it.
