PEN TYPES YOU NEVER KNEW EXISTED
The pen is that one instrument we probably would not be able to do without in a day, however it is one of the most ignored items such that if you get to run a check on the number of items present on an average human being during working hours you are most likely not going to find a pen on him or her.
On the average, this is partly due to our advancement in technology; that is why the manual pen is gradually going extinct.
The major importance of a pen is to write. You can’t talk about information transfer without talking about how the information can be transferred in writing. Writing makes information transfer easy and the tool for that is the pen.
The origin of the pen can be traced to ancient Egypt 3000BC where pens were cut out from bamboo, reeds etc. From there on, there came advancements in civilization where quills were gotten from bird feathers which were improved to the modern pens we have today.
It is essential to note that many people do not know that the pencil, board markers, crayons and brushes are types of pens, drawing from the definition that a pen is a writing tool that can be used to make images, drawings and ideas; plain on a surface. Many do not also know that the ballpoint pen called Biro pen was invented by a certain Loud, but patented by a certain Laszlo Biro hence the name.
The first commercially produced pen was the Bic pen named after the founder. The regular pen according to studies have shown to cause about hundred deaths per year due to suffocation hence some pens have holes in their caps to make way for air. In the likelihood of an accidental swallow, the victim can still be saved due to the little opening present on the cap which allows for air passage.
Stated below are pen types and their brief description.
• The ballpoint pen: this is called Biro by the British, it is the most common type of pen which makes use of ink oil enclosed in a chamber that runs through to the tip. It is called ballpoint because its tip is ball-shaped, the ball-shaped tip is made of steel, tungsten carbide etc
• Felt-tip pen: the tip of this pen is made of a fibrous porous material for easy seeping of the ink to the surface. Felt-tip pens with small tips can be used as crayons for drawing by children and the very larger ones are used as markers and highlighters.
• Fountain pen: this type of pen makes use of water-based ink as opposed to the ballpoint pen which makes use of oil-based inks. It operates through gravity and capillary action.
• Pencil: this type of pen is one which does not have an ink reservoir like the ballpoint pen such that the ink(pigment) is jointly fitted to its chamber. The pigment is made of graphite in combination with other substances. It can be made sharper by the use of a sharpener.
• Nanofountain probe: this is the smallest pen in history. It is used for nanoscale on-chip patterning and produce lines that are about fourty nanometers wide.
• The Archarya Makunuri pen: this is the largest pen in the world with a height of 5.5m and weighs about thirty-seven grams.
The concept of pens comes to the fore in important discourse because most people want to make an impact, either by the words they speak or by what they do, nevertheless, there exists a prominent connection between the words we speak and what we do; which is information. Information is what connects knowledge, speech, and actions, how then can there be exchange without a medium?. Information is a major influence on human psychology- the more we know, the more positioned we are as regards our actions. Writing then comes forward, and in the study of the history of writing, the pen is a major player. Our understanding of the power of the pen is our understanding of how best to change the negative narrative of the society we find ourselves.
