Writing with a writing utensil

[Eugene94]

Hello, I have had some questions arise and I hope that the answers will be found.

The writing utensil; which in a way has been replaced by the keyboard and penmanship seems to have disappeared. Is this because of speed or ease; or are there other reasons?

This I guess leads to my other question. What kind of impact does the writing utensil have on the brain? Is there something that we lose when we use the keyboard; that is present when we write with a writing utensil?
I understand this is a keyboard forum but are there any that noticed that writing with a wring utensil is better after all? Hope this will lead to an insightful discussion.

[Muirium]

The pen is mightier than the sword. But an IBM Selectric will beat either of them out of shape.

I'd say that touchscreens vs. keyboards is more the tale of the present, rather than either of them versus pens. When the Internet lies behind your screen and keys, you're in a very different place than you are with paper. In fact, you're in a different age.

[Findecanor]

I'd say that the replacement of the pen started long ago with the invention of the typewriter. In that sense, a personal computer with a printer can be an evolved type of typewriter, as many people use personal computers primarily for typing documents.
A computer/typewriter excels only in the hands of a trained/experienced person, however.

BTW. On my desk are a couple of pens with branded logos: One pen is from Cherry who makes primarily keyboards and keyboard parts ...

[Kurk]

I tend to remember things I've written by hand (as in with a pen) better than things I've typed. Possibly because penning something down takes longer so I reflect more on what I'm actually writing.

[SL89]

I tend to remember things I've written by hand (as in with a pen) better than things I've typed. Possibly because penning something down takes longer so I reflect more on what I'm actually writing.

This reminds me of the oft said 'People remember more from reading on paper then they do from a screen.' I'm not sure if its an old wives tale for the modern age or if the mechanics of writing by hand / reading from a book are such that they really effect that.

[Halvar]

From my view as a "digital immigrant": the most important difference between writing today and writing 100 years ago is not the keyboard but the backspace key and cursor keys. I do write letters to friends or family by hand from time to time, and I know that I'm not as good in thinking my sentences through and then merely writing them down as I once was.

[7bit]

But there is a backspace key:

Sure, you need to type with a pencil, but if you do, hitting backspace is no problem!

[Halvar]

I have always been much too lazy to write letters first by pencil and then overwrite them with ink.

Also: I never managed to toggle my pencil from OVERRIDE mode to INSERT mode. Any tip?

[7bit]

pencil -> photo-copy -> send letter

Also:

[Halvar]

Have you ever even done that in your life, young whippersnapper? I have, and, nope, it's not the same.

[7bit]

We used to learn these things in the Kindergarten!


Also: At least cutting out paper and placing it on a copy machine, I still do today. Not often, but it happens!

[Muirium]

Ironically, the manual for my first computer — a TRS-80, don't laugh! — had been updated by its original owner by hand, using literal cut and paste. I think he'd upgraded it to 48K, which also bumped some of the BASIC features contained throughout the manual. Apparently Radio Shack gave you deltas, which you laboriously glued in place. Because they were comic bastards.

I never liked that damn computer. The keyboard was probably alright, but tape storage just wasn't cutting it. Our first floppy system (an Apple II of some variety we didn't have for long) was such a breath of fresh air. No going back to sequential access!

[fr1tz]

I think I write as much as I type. I work in mathematics and so very often am using chalk or a pen on scrap paper. However I am also involved to some degree in computer science, programming and computational mathematics (Mathematica, MATLAB, &c.) and so I do my fair share of typing.

In my opinion the two cannot be compared. Typing is incredibly restricted. We have tools like LaTeX and html but really we can only enter alphanumeric characters and a handful of symbols easily with a keyboard. Writing is just a special kind of drawing, and drawing is completely unrestricted (except by your imagination!). In mathematics we couldn't possibly use a keyboard all the time, we need to draw diagrams, arrows, special symbols ... My professor at University said the only reason why mathematics text books aren't just pictures is because printing presses limited what could be put in them (only characters), but the best way to do mathematics is with pictures!

[Halvar]

I agree, mathematics is a whole different beast than texts when it comes to writing, which IMO has more to do with missing effective input devices for maths on computers than with the love of mathematicians to the pencil. Mathematica or Maple could be even more of a help if entering formulae was more intuitive and less cumbersome.

Drawing is something else altogether IMO, and almost the same holds true for it. It's actually hard to believe that there is still not much good supportive software for fast entering of the kind of drawings that you use to visualize concepts in maths or physics (I'm originally a physicist by training). A pencil (or chalk or a whiteboard marker) is definitely still the best tool there.

[Willwas]

The pen is mightier than the sword.

I tend to remember things I've written by hand (as in with a pen) better than things I've typed. Possibly because penning something down takes longer so I reflect more on what I'm actually writing.

This reminds me of the oft said 'People remember more from reading on paper then they do from a screen.' I'm not sure if its an old wives tale for the modern age or if the mechanics of writing by hand / reading from a book are such that they really effect that.

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/20 ... 1.abstract
The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard
Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking

[ShawnMeg]

It's like that girl on the Trayvon Martin case who couldn't read cursive.

I don't use a pen/pencil as much as a keyboard. I use it primarily to sign documents and jot a few notes. Using a keyboard is much more efficient. I have some very nice pens and pencils given to me as gifts over the years, but they stay secured in a drawer and rarely get used.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Since my writing and typing both suck …

The problem with writing is that it's all too easy for me to write something that I can't read. I can write very neatly (in my own strange form of script) but it's quite laborious and even if I start out writing beautifully it slowly degrades as I subconsciously lose the patience.

Computerrs also let you correct strange errors like when I used to write "both" as "bothe" persistently on paper at school. (That "rr" is a strange one — for a while I thought my "r" key was broken, but for some reason there are certain keys that I am far more likely to mistakenly hit twice, some sort of twitch that gets "r" more than any other key.)

I was bummed that, after changing from one colour of ink (Waterman blue-black) to another (Waterman Serenity Blue¹) the other day, I completely missed the point where the colour smoothly transitioned from old to new, as that must have happened overnight by mixing itself in. (Why are ball point pens always a purplish-blue, and liquid ink a much more pure shade of blue?)

I think typing and writing are both satisfying in their own ways. Certainly typing out an e-mail or post flushes everything I wanted to say from memory, and if the browser eats, it I can't remember what I wrote or why. I mostly use pen and pencil for notes, sketches, diagrams etc.


¹ Waterman imagine that people are supposed to be able to figure out if they want blue or blue-black from the names "Serenity Blue" and "Mysterious Blue", as those have such obvious colour connotations.

[fifted]

I like a pen for artisan/personal feel. I've been working on my penmanship somewhat, and I feel like some sort of craftsman when writing out a letter on nice stationery. It's satisfying!