Is it Just a Pencil?: The first word processor? Design Mysteries Series

Ticonderoga Pencil

It’s just a pencil but it took centuries to create an electronic one that sometimes works as well but never leaves the faint image that hauntingly remains as a clue to your first thought. The pencil is the first word processor with a built-in delete feature, the eraser! The material the eraser is made from got its name because it RUBS out pencil marks, hence the name RUBBER. Seems almost too simple an invention, but National Pencil Day, March 30th celebrates the day in 1858 that Hymen Lipman patented his invention for a pencil with an eraser attached to one end.

Unlike most pens, the pencil’s length always tells you just how much writing you have left as you slowly whittle away at its length, expressing thoughts filing blanks on tests, chewing the end waiting for that though.

Making marks on paper somehow easier for people if they know they can erase or change those marks. Pencils let us second guess our selves much better than most writing instruments although the computer lets us wipe out whole paragraphs with ease.

Most pencils are made from two wood halves hollowed out to receive a mixture of graphite and clay, called lead because the graphite was called plumbago, the Latin term for graphite, which translates to lead ore. So there is no LEAD in a lead pencil. The mystery of language. So we are stuck with the term leads for whatever we put into a pencil because of a mistake make 2000 years ago. Love it!

Why are pencils yellow? There are a few answers: pencils are yellow because American pencil manufacturers bought graphite from China and yellow is considered a royal color in China, on the other hand, yellow pencils were introduced in Europe by Kohinoor to denote luxury associated with the Kohinoor diamond. Go figure, my guess is that there happened to be yellow paint laying around that had to be used so why not dip the pencils in it. Yellow also stands out on a wooden school desk, so it’s easy to see. Maybe the yellow school pencil led to the yellow school bus. Who knows?

So how did we get all those numbers written on pencils? You know, the HB, 2H, 4H, etc. that explain the hardness or softness of the lead. Blame that on Henry David Thoreau, famous for retreating to Walden Pond and writing about it. It seems prior to retreating to Walden he invented a way to add clay to graphite that controlled the hardness of the lead. Because of his invention, The Thoreau Pencil Company became the leading pencil maker in America.

So the pencil isn’t as simple as it seems what with its ability to change harness from HB to 4H, with its marvellous delete feature and its mobility and availability at all hours of the day or night in any location free from electronic connectivity it performs in zero gravity as well as underwater.

What an invention.

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Design Mysteries Series
Bruce Hannah 2018 ©