Thread: Umberto Eco: The lost art of handwriting

From the movie Doubt : Sister Superior Aloysius (Meryl Streep) castigates Sister James for allowing a ball point pen in her classroom. She believes that a fountain pen is the only writing implement the Lord allows and such heresy as a ballpoint pen is not to be condoned.

At uni, my first calligraphy teacher said he had once, for a whole semester course, used nothing but ball-point pens with his students. He quickly demonstrated how you can create copperplate-style “expanding stroke” only by varying pressure using a ballpoint pen – it looked stunning.

friction between pen and paper is a very important issue. ballpoints glide over the surface nearly without friction. from my observations i would say that only a few people’s handwriting can benefit from this, most people would be better off with less slippery tools, like fountain pens, pencils, felt tips or rapidographs.

ballpoints glide over the surface nearly without friction. That depends heavily on the quality of the ballpoint. The kind of cheap disposable pens that school children are often given to use do not glide. Rather, the glutinous ink makes the ball sticky such that it doesn’t roll where directed by the writer and, instead, rolls where the friction of the ink directs it.

I find this a Bic hard to believe. Maybe he should stick to selling shoes. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/sep/21/umberto-eco-handwriting

Just like Foucault’s Pendulum . Too bad to be true.