Ang ballpen

BY KIM ATIENZA 

The fountain pen was invented by a Romanian student in Paris, Petrache Poenaru.

The French government had it patented in May 1827. Fountain pen patents and production then increased in the 1850s.

The ballpen has been around since the late 1940s as a quick alternative to fountain pen.

It is believed to have been invented in South America, in Brazil, specifically.

The ballpen is to fast food as fountain pen is to fine dining. 

In the old days, people wrote through incising and scratching.

The earliest material used to write on was clay as it needed little preparation before use.

Clay was also easy to work on and was readily available in Mesopotamia (Middle East), where the first writing developed.

Damp clay could be formed into a tablet in the hand and drawn into with a stylus.

Note how the term stylus has been revived as a writing instrument in today’s age of high technology.

And so has tablet.

Speaking of ballpen, we think of paper.

What about toilet paper?

It is said that the first recorded use of toilet paper was in 6th century China. By the 14th Century, the Chinese government was mass-producing it.

Send your questions on anything and everything to Kuya Kim through my Twitter account @kuyakim_atienza using #AlaminKayKuyaKim.