Quick: Pencil or pen?

 

Remember the expression "putting pen to paper"? Traditionally, it simply means to write something, anything, but the current usage requires specification - distinguishing the technical act of writing with a pen on paper from composing email, for example. Think I'm exaggerating? See the Free Dictionary's section on idioms.

Well, if you had your choice of implement in that technical act of writing on paper (or parchment or vellum, or whiteboard, for that matter,if you prefer)...what would you use?

 

Fountain pen?

Quill?

#2 pencil? 

Magic marker?

Highlighter?

Crayon? 

Rolling ink pen?

Ballpoint pen?

Chalk? (with appropriate chalkboard or sidewalk)

Charcoal? 

Sharpie? 

Would you choose a color? Which one? Or do you prefer black ink? Or blue? Or the comforting grey of graphite?

 

Do you like to glide smoothly over paper? Or the scritch-scratch of a sharpened pencil? What about the blotting of inky ink (on the side of your hand too, of course)? Or the smudgy shadows of charcoal?

 

I used to take notes with a blue medium ballpoint pen - and only a blue medium ballpoint pen. Now, I'm inclined to be more colorful, as I draw my own attention to different categories or subtle points using different inks. My handwriting, however, is not as clear with the steady line of liquid ink. Beyond the deterioration in fine-motor coordination for which I may blame the keyboard, the "fine-point" pen of 7mm is too fluid for my rapid penmanship, and the careful loops and spikes that form letters are blurred.

 

In The Art of the Handwritten Note: A Guide to Reclaiming Civilization, Margaret Shepherd argues well that a handwritten note highlights its message by the very virtue of the fact that it is handwritten. She claims that the handwritten note has been elevated to an art form, and it in turn upgrades a message because it is less common than email. Most importantly, she reminds her readers that "[i]nk on paper is still the classiest way to express the thoughts that really matter, on the occasions that really count" (p. xiv). I tend to agree, and will extend her "art form" to include the fun that crayons herald, the nuance of charcoal, the importance announced by magic markers, and the sheer elegance of calligraphy.

 

Then again, the art of the handwritten note is no longer in vogue. Handwriting is not what it once was, nor even what it became after that! (My grandmother writes with copybook elegant penmanship; in contrast, I was told that my scribble "...looks legible..."). There's little need for pen or pencil, except for scrawling down a grocery list (not even that, if you use your phone), or a quick love note on a post-it. As always, it's a choice. Choosing pen or pencil has definite advantages (personality, convenience, degrees of formal/casual). But for good old fashioned communication, these days the technical act of putting writing implement to paper loses well to the new, less dignified technology (with which I do indeed write here).