15 Startling Facts About Pencils You’d Love To Know
A humble pencil is everybody’s first-ever stationery. It’s really hard to imagine how everyone’s childhood would have turned out sans the pencil. From the first words on paper to developing a handwriting, to the first ever exams, pencils were an indispensable part of our formative years. The countless sessions of sharpening pencils, breaking leads, losing pencils and having fun with one, are some of our fondest memories of school days. Today, being the National Pencil Day we decided to put together a list of amazing facts about pencils you’d love to know and share amongst those who are ever fond of pencils.
- Pencils became part of modern society in the 16th century, after graphite was discovered in England. Later, in 1560, an Italian couple stumbled across an idea to encase graphite cores in wood sticks and the idea stuck. Today, billions are produced in various shapes, sizes, and hardness.
- The word, Pencil derives from the Latin penicillus, meaning, ‘not so sensibly’ or even, ‘little tail’.
- Though Greek poet Philip of Thessaloníki wrote of leaden writing instruments in the first century B.C., but the modern pencil, as described by Swiss naturalist Conrad Gesner, dates only to 1565.
- Marks from pencils are made when tiny graphite flecks, often just thousandths of an inch wide, stick to the fibers of a paper.
- An average pencil has enough graphite to draw a line of about 35 miles long or write roughly 45,000 words. Through this an estimate and history does not record anyone testing this stat.
- Longest pencil in the world is 323.51 m in length. It was made by Edward Douglas Miller from the United Kingdom.
- Author, John Steinbeck is known to have used as many as 60 pencils a day to write his novels.
- A named Nicolas-Jacques Conté from France was the first to patent a clay-and-graphite manufacturing process in 1795.
- Henry David Thoreau used pencils to write his famous work, Walden, since he probably got them for free as his father owned a pencil-making business near Boston, where Henry allegedly designed his own pencils.
- Pencils were among the basic equipment issued by Union soldiers during the Civil War.
- More than half of all pencils are manufactured in China. In 2004, factories there turned out 10 billion pencils, enough to circle the earth more than 40 times.
- Pencils being light as they are, can write in zero gravity and so were used on early American and Russian space missions.
- The oldest surviving pencil dates as far back as the 17th century. It was found on the roof of an old German house while it was renovated and later given to Faber-Castell.
- The word “graphite” comes from Greek “graphein” which means “to write”.
- Emilio Arenas, a man from Uruguay has the largest collection of lead pencils in the world. He has 16,260 pencils from all over the world and holds a Guinness Record.
Pencils are a world of its own and one can definitely grow fond of one when using a pencil that is reliable and offers smooth and clear writing, like the Linc Pentonic Extra Dark Premium Pencils It is advised to choose premium quality pencils for children in their formative years which has good sharpening ability and high break resistance. A good writing experience with a pencil is what a child needs to make a mark in the journey of learning, growth and discoveries.
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