9 ms·
How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive
- rodgerd 11y agoThis is rubbish. Ballpoint pens had long been in existence before I went to school, and I learned cursive. My daughter's French classmates are all, today, taught superb cursive handwriting.
- christianmann 11y agoOkay. So was I, but primarily I don't see people using it for everyday writing. Why do you suppose that is the case? Most people know how to use cursive, but they choose not to do so.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- LyndsySimon 11y agoMost people tend not to write enough to make it a worthwhile skill to maintain.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- nvader 11y agoThat's exactly the author's point. We still teach a cursive writing style that is better suited for fountain pens, while working with ball-points that require a lot more pressure to start marking. Being trained in a technique is not enough, if that technique no longer works with the tools that are widely used today. When I write with a fountain pen, I too find that cursive is more natural. When I write with a ballpoint, I actually tend to write in short clusters of one, two or three "joi ned le tt ers.", so my hand has a chance to relax between each... diglyph, I guess you'd call it. Under the discipline of a schoolteacher, I could force myself to write "superb cursive handwriting", but when writing for speed and legibility, I adapt to the limitations of my tools.
- DasIch 11y agoNot writing in cursive helps but it doesn't solve the fundamental problem that ballpoint pens are significantly worse than fountain pens when you need to write for several hours in an exam for example.
- boken 11y agoIt is most telling, to me, to hear people (none of them made from straw) admit that writer's cramp is part and parcel of a single session of taking notes or writing an hour-long exam. Professional copyists and secretaries in the early 20th century weren't biting down on their lower lips to push through the pain every time they put pen to paper during ten- and twelve-hour workdays. They just used better tools for that job (leak as the tools might do) and were taught how to write with focus on posture and movement, not on letterforms alone. I don't strictly use the letterforms or all the best practices of the Palmer method—see the article for a link—but using a Palmer book as a guide, I managed to teach myself to write with a relaxed grip and no movement in the fingers or wrist, and I can go for hours now and walk away with no more discomfort than the stiffness of sitting without relief. It is hard to write like this using most ballpoints because you do need to exert more force to get a consistent line out of the things. You don't need a fountain or dip pen, however—just a soft-leaded pencil (try an art supply shop), a good rollerball pen, or some gel pens. None of these write as effortlessly as a fountain pen, but neither do they require the kind of cramp-inducing force that a Bic pen does. I've read mid-century materials on this topic before. My sense is that this isn't a new argument so much as a forgotten one.
- jacobolus 11y agoThe Palmer method descends from Spencerian script, an excessively flowery and not-all-that-legible form of writing from the days when people wanted to make their writing look difficult and fancy. Writing in a fancy style is fine for calligraphers making wedding invitations or whatever, but is a poor model for teaching children or for everyday use for most people. Italic (aka chancery cursive), a script of renaissance Italy, is a much better model. Here’s a great page targeted at teaching children to write, with lots of exercises: http://briem.net http://briem.net Also see http://luc.devroye.org/Briem1985-IcelandicMethod.pdf http://luc.devroye.org/Briem1985-IcelandicMethod.pdf and http://66.147.242.192/~operinan/8/2/205.html http://66.147.242.192/~operinan/8/2/205.html
- boken 11y agoPlease don't assume my ignorance on other hands, or that I would argue in favor of teaching students the Palmer method. Teaching children outmoded systems ill suited to the instruments they are likely to have at hand is grossly unnecessary. (One of the reasons, incidentally, that I don't think students ought to be required to use italic nibs.) In its time, Palmer was taught under the assumption that a sizeable portion of each class would need a good—not decorative—hand for professional purposes at some point in their lives. That is no longer true. Palmer descends from, but is assuredly not, Spencerian. Nor is it in any sense of the word fancy, except perhaps in comparison to blockletter print. It is a business hand designed for practical, quick, and legible business communications. It is not a coincidence that Palmer books begin with posture and movement exercises before students are even to lift a pen. It really is meant for everyday, injury-free use.
- anigbrowl 11y ago...in America.
- gus_massa 11y agoAt least in Argentina, the children at school still use a fountain pen and learn cursive. In secondary they usualy switch to a ballpoint.
- anigbrowl 11y agoMany European countries too, but people still write things by hand.
- guard-of-terra 11y agoWow, why would they torture children that way? Even ballpoint pen is obviously outdated and should be held back, keyboard is the king.
- rdsnsca 11y agoCost.
- guard-of-terra 11y agoCost? Fontain pens are very impractical devices. Ink wells, ink spills, carrying pens around, fixing them - this ends up.
- realusername 11y agoYeah, I was thinking the same thing, I only saw one friend writing in another script but he is clearly a minority, the vast majority of people on my case (France) are writing in cursive.
- rmason 11y agoI learned cursive writing in first grade in 1958 (in Detroit) and we were already using ballpoint pens. But the desks we used had working inkwells, emptied of the ink, so I'd guess the change was fairly recent because a few years later the inkwells had been removed just leaving big holes in the desks where they'd resided. The biggest thing back then was that I was left handed and the teachers forced me to write right handed. My mother ended up getting me 'permission' to write left handed and I have been happily ever since ;<).
- esaym 11y agoMy grandmother forced my left handed mother to do everything with her right hand, including write. Now she writes with either hand :)
- amouat 11y agoMy primary school (UK) had desks with inkwells in the 80s. I have no idea when the inkwells had last been used. The idea of giving 4-11 yo kids ink seems crazy now.
- scholia 11y agoI was an "ink monitor" at school in the UK in the 1950s. My job was to go round and fill up empty inkwells. It was the pinnacle of my career ;-) I don't remember any problems. We were very well-behaved.
- ctdonath 11y agoThe Apple Newton was the last chance for cursive. Having two, I found that was the easiest and most accurate handwriting input. Alas, "egg freckles" rued the day and no more tech used cursive input.
- nirvdrum 11y agoMicrosoft's handwriting recognition is surprisingly good at understanding cursive. I have a Lenovo Helix and use the built-in digitizer with some frequency due to RSI issues with typing. I don't think it's a huge use case, but it's nice to see the technology carrying forward in some capacity.
- colinsidoti 11y agoAny lefties here? I'm a lefty and feel stuck with the basic ballpoint because any other pen I try ends up with everything smudged. Not sure if that's just poor form on my part.
- eitally 11y agoI'm a lefty and I switched successfully to Mitsubishi Jetstream pens a few years ago. They don't smudge unless you're writing on glossy paper. I bought mine at a Japanese stationery/pen shop in SF (at the mall next to Union Square) a few years ago, but you can find them anywhere. Here's a Rakuten link: http://global.rakuten.com/en/store/atn/item/sxn-15005/ http://global.rakuten.com/en/store/atn/item/sxn-15005/
- munificent 11y agoMe too. I love nice pens, paper, calligraphy, the works. I practically fetishize it and drool over Moleskines every time I'm in a bookstore. But as a lefty, I feel like the proper experience of using them is pretty much off limits to me.
- bane 11y agoWhatever kind of paper they use in moleskines and gel pens have been a saving grace for me. For some reason it works much much better.
- bane 11y agoI'm a lefty, and I can barely get pens to work most of the time because of the angle I have to hold the pen to write with (lefties tend to push pens, which makes them not work). Pencils weren't much better because of the smudgy mess it created all over my hand and the paper. Getting through school was excruciating and messy until I got to college and it was considered "okay" to turn in work I had done on my computer. I could have pretty decent handwriting for about an hour and then fatigue simply set it and most of my writing is an illegible mess. Not surprisingly, when I was young and we were graded on handwriting my grades were pretty poor. Cursive didn't help much either as the continuous strokes simply meant I made more of a mess all over myself. I was an okay sketch artist as a kid, so I had good pen control, just could never really adapt myself to the written word. Lots of lefties go through all kinds of contortions to improve some of the situation, you'll notice Obama reaches around where he's writing so he can pull on the pen. I tried that for a while but the back and shoulder cramps were pretty spectacularly killer. https://traceyricksfoster.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/obama-signing.jpg https://traceyricksfoster.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/obama-...
- ryandrake 11y agoIs there even a point to learning cursive anymore? Seems like a waste of time if they're still teaching it to kids. I can't think of any practical purpose for it. Knowing cursive is about as useful as knowing how to use an abacus.
- eitally 11y agoKnowing how to use an abacus makes early arithmetic so much easier for young school children. I think knowing cursive is still useful, too, because if you do know how to use ligatures to join letters you can write MUCH faster than if you have to write in print. As an engineer, I prefer smallcaps when I need someone else to read my handwriting, but if it's just for my own consumption (task lists, notes, etc) it's faux* cursive 99% of the time. * faux because it's really just joining letters and filling the missing letter spaces with zig zaggy curlies ... which have no bearing on readability, per this: http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge/ http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge/
- mirimir 11y agoI also use faux cursive. I find it faster to print initial letters. Also printed "m", "n", "r", "s" and "w" are as fast, and more likely legible. That evolved over many years of note taking. I used to prefer Rapidograph, but now its rollerball.
- bane 11y agoI think it's useful for being able to read old documents. My parents and grandparents wrote only in cursive and I'm finding I have to read their writing to younger people who can't read it.
- cdash 11y agoI am not sure learning how to read cursive is very hard and teaching that may still be a good thing to do. Learning how to write it seems the difficult part though considering most people who do not know how to write cursive can read it just fine. Note: Some cursive is much easier to read than others
- jonah 11y agoIf you want to try fountain pens but don't want to spend $$ on a nice one at first, check out the Pilot Varsity line.[1] They're cheap and disposable and seem to write pretty well. (I'm no expert on fountain pens though.) I use them for note taking at meetings and whatnot. You do want a fairly fine/tight paper to write on though - the same as any other liquid-ink pen. [1] http://pilotpen.us/categories/fountain-pens/varsity/ http://pilotpen.us/categories/fountain-pens/varsity/
- kctess5 11y agoI can recommend the Pilot Metropolitan [1]! I have two and they are better than some "very nice" fountain pens I've used/had. Very smooth, very little issues with leaking, pretty cheap at <$20. [1] http://www.gouletpens.com/Pilot-Metropolitan/c/191 http://www.gouletpens.com/Pilot-Metropolitan/c/191
- tacticus 11y agoI'll second this recommendation. the metropolitans are great pens.
- gknoy 11y agoI loved them. I seem to recall them not being waterproof, though. For paper, try the bamboo-based paper from Staples. :)
- jane_is_here 11y agoI have a nice Baoer 79 Montblanc Starwalker clone that I paid under $4 for ( delivery included ) Here is someone's review http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/240914-baoer-79-review/ http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/240914-baoer-7... If you prefer something larger,the Jinhao 159 is a clone of the Montblanc Meisterstück 149 http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/216230-jinhao-159/ http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/216230-jinhao-... and is under $6 on ebay
- guard-of-terra 11y agoI say good riddance. Leave it to people who make a job out of it. We should admit it and move on, removing stuck bits of handwriting from where it doesn't belong anymore. I personally never liked writing on paper, it was ugly and time-consuming; I would never be able to express myself on paper: I'll compress the meaning away or just quit halfway through.
- witty_username 11y agoYup, my typing speed is ~80 WPM and my writing speed is probably way less and not even as easy to read.
- vizeroth 11y agoMy typing speed is more than 80 WPM when I'm 12 hours into a bad day and my handwriting is horrid, but I still often use paper to clarify my thoughts, take notes, and draw diagrams. More often than not, I never actually read what I've written, the act of writing just makes it easier for me to retain the information. Similarly, I've found that I can retain the content of electronic documents more easily if I type them out in a text editor. Sometimes I just delete the text, other times I retain it as a more portable version of the content. Most members of my family think it's strange that I work with paper so much (and continue to buy most of my books in paper form), given that I've made a living writing software and websites for almost 20 years. I just think that, even with computers in the house from a young age, I was taught to use my brain through paper, and every alternative they've come up with to date has been, at best, a half-assed imitation.
- witty_username 11y agoI was taught to use my brain through a keyboard :p. Writing on paper seems clunky to me. And since I'm homeschooled I've been typing most of my answers to books on a computer (for 4-5 years).
- Glide 11y agoI have yet to find diagramming software that lets me express myself faster than a couple of quick doodles on a piece of paper. I find myself loathing to explain something with a "simple" chart that can take 5 minutes to draw by hand but far more on a computer.
- philip1209 11y agoI love fountain pens. Like automatic watches, they create a certain attachment and appreciation for function.
- kctess5 11y agoI've almost exclusively used fountain pens for about 5 years now, and it's been amazing. Modern fountain pens don't generally leak much, and they are SO much better to write with than a basic Bic/generic ballpoint. The primary difference is that you don't have to push down at all which saves your hand from a huge amount of stress after a long writing session. I really don't understand why more people don't use them these days. Another bonus is that you can choose from a very wide variety of inks, so you can change it up whenever you feel like it. My daily driver is currently a Monteverde Invincia Deluxe Stainless Steel ($65), which looks fantastic and is a great performer. I highly recommend to that anyone with large hands, because it's definitely not small. I also recommend the Pilot Metropolitan (~$12) [1] and the Waterman Phileas (~$50) all of which I have used extensively for class notes. If I don't have one of my FPs for whatever reason, then I have been known to go for smooth "roller ball" pens as well - they use more lubricated ink than standard ball points and require less pressure, so they generally feel like mediocre fountain pens. [1] https://www.massdrop.com/buy/pilot-mr-fountain-pen https://www.massdrop.com/buy/pilot-mr-fountain-pen
- ghaff 11y agoI tend to prefer roller ball pens but I'm pretty much a lost cause when it comes to writing at this point anyway. Handwriting was never one of my better subjects in grade school under the best of circumstances but looking through old notebooks as they progress over the years apparently reveals a general descent into total loss of right hand muscular control. :-)
- Glide 11y agoI bought a copy of Write Now! and it improved my handwriting considerably. After going through it (it's essentially a workbook) I was kind of pissed at the absurdity that was the cursive that I learned in grade school.
- ryanmac 11y agoWhich "Write Now!"? There appears to be several by different authors on Amazon.
- muddyrivers 11y agoIn my hometown in the 80's, elementary school kids were not allowed to use ballpoints. Fountain pens were allowed from the 3rd grade. Before that, wood-based pencils only. Even mechanical pencils were forbidden. It was said that ballpoints and mechanical pencils, especially the former, would have very negative effects on developing one's handwriting. This was the case for Chinese, in which a good handwriting was highly regarded. As far as I know, there are no studies to prove or disprove the claim. It was true for me personally and for my classmates. I could execute many handwriting forms in pencils and in fountain pens easily while extremely hard, if ever possible, in ballpoints. After using ballpoints for a pretty long period, I couldn't write as well even if I picked up my fountain pens again. It had to take some time and some writing to get it back.
- WhoBeI 11y agoSustained fine grained and fluid hand movement is more difficult to learn then drawing a sequence of geometric shapes and a lot more challenging to read. School should be about understanding ideas and the value of critical thinking. Using or requiring the use of an inefficient presentation method does not help with that mission. I suppose the mass move away from cursive writing started with the printing press. By simplifying the symbols we gained a powerful tool to spread the ideas they convey. This has just become more true with the computer which, much like the printing press, has a much easier time with distinct disconnected symbols. I believe it's more important to learn how to write and express your ideas using all available technologies then spending time learning the particulars of one. The hammer doesn't need to be beautiful to build a beautiful house it needs to be efficient. Writing does not need to be elegant to convey a beautiful message.
- hinkley 11y agoWhat about gel ink?
- fsloth 11y agoFountain pens rule. But the problem with acquiring them is that nowadays a lot of fountain pens seem to be made to look fancy and not to write well.
- jacobolus 11y agoNice HN discussion about handwriting from a few years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2500864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2500864 I like this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2501152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2501152 – a partial quotation: > Almost all US schools have standardized on forms of looped cursive (e.g. Parker Penmanship, Zaner-Bloser) -- a set of letterforms designed not for handwriting, but for the movable type printing press! Looped cursive was made to be attractive with the fewest unique joins possible so that printers needed to stock fewer pieces for their movable type presses. Looped cursive is slower, less legible, and more difficult to learn than forms of writing actually made to be written (such as cursive italic).
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y agoThis is why I started using Uniball Eye pens. They require so much less pressure, it's quite a relief for my hand. And when I picked them up, I started using cursive again in my handwriting.
- vsbuffalo 11y agoI love fountain pens and highly encourage everyone to try them (with a good notebook helps). First, ballpoint pens are wasteful — 1.6 billion pens a year are thrown away[1]. Fountain pens are reusable, ink is comparatively cheap and lasts forever, and finding your ink is a fun and personal experience (I really like the "bulletproof" Noodler's inks which are waterproof, bleach proof, etc.). Fountain pens last forever — which is why folks still hunt around for 40+ year old used ones. Second, it really does make writing fun. I hated writing — my handwriting is messy, it's slow, and it's not as easy as typing. As the article argues, a good fountain pen makes it much, and in my experience much more enjoyable. Third, it doesn't need to be expensive. Get a Lamy Safari (EF), a Lamy converter and a bottle of Noodlers ink. I also love my Faber Castell Loom[2] (it's the smoothest pen I own), and I carry around a Kaweco Al-Sport[3] everywhere (it's the perfect pocket pen). [1] http://www.epa.gov/superfund/students/clas_act/haz-ed/ff06.pdf http://www.epa.gov/superfund/students/clas_act/haz-ed/ff06.p... [2] http://www.gouletpens.com/faber-castell-loom-metallic-orange-fountain-pen/p/FB-Loom-MetallicOrange-FP http://www.gouletpens.com/faber-castell-loom-metallic-orange... [3] http://www.jetpens.com/Kaweco-AL-Sport-Fountain-Pen-Fine-Nib-Matte-Blue-Body/pd/9495 http://www.jetpens.com/Kaweco-AL-Sport-Fountain-Pen-Fine-Nib...
- fabian2k 11y agoDiscussions about cursive writing on the Internet confused me quite a bit until I noticed that there seems to be a pretty large difference between what I learned in Germany and what people in the US learned. What children learn in Germany for at least a few decades now looks like the following: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Vereinfachte_Ausgangsschrift.png https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Vereinfachte_Ausgangssch... From what I understand, the cursive script that was taught in US schools was much more complicated with lots of little flourishes. The simplified cursive script seems a lot more practical to me, and I wonder if that is a factor in the the decline of cursive writing. The negative reactions to cursive writing I've read on the internet from people in the US seemed a lot stronger than anything I've ever heard from Germans.
- personalcompute 11y agoFor what it is worth, the lowercase cursive characters I learned in American public primary school around ~2002 were very similar or possibly identical to the lowercase characters in your image. However, the uppercase characters did have some more complexity.
- vizeroth 11y agoSince I was taught in a California public school in the 1980s, I believe I was taught using the Zaner-Bloser method. As someone else mentioned, the lowercase letters look mostly the same, but there are more differences in the uppercase letters. The main thing that strikes me in looking at your example is that I would have to lift my pen/pencil to generate most of those uppercase letters. In general, if I write in cursive, I only lift my pen/pencil off the page at the end of a word, and I tend to drag the tail of the last letter of the word back if I need to cross a 't' or dot an 'i' or 'j'. I also developed a habit of crossing my 'z' (and 'Z', and the number 7), oddly enough, from my German teacher in high school (though she was from Munich, and probably learned her handwriting in the 1940s or 1950s).
- eloisant 11y agoIndeed, in France everyone still write in cursive even with ball pens. Having to lift the pen for each letter seems so tedious that I don't understand how Americans can write such long texts in print. The only case where we don't is to fill administrative forms, as they force you to write in print for legibility.
- geeklodhi 11y agoI found this article more helpful http://googler700.blogspot.com.tr/2015/08/self-seo-training.html http://googler700.blogspot.com.tr/2015/08/self-seo-training....
- CurtMonash 11y agoI used to get very sore neck muscles, not pain in my hands. If an essay exam final was truly 3 hours, rather than twice the length of a 1 hour midterm, I came out in agony.
- drakonka 11y agoI learned this when I bought my first and only fountain pen last year. The difference in writing experience is amazing - I take so much more notes now, and actually carry a notebook with me.
- cheetos 11y agoI'm surprised no one has mentioned felt tip pens as an alternative to fountain pens. The Paper Mate medium point felt tip pen is my favorite writing tool. It provides a good-looking and effortless stroke and you can buy them pretty much anywhere.
- bambax 11y agoIn France everyone uses ballpoints, and yet everyone writes cursive, so I very much doubt there's any connection between the two. The weird handwriting of Americans certainly has to do with how they're taught, not what they use. I have three kids that are currently learning to write (aged 6, 7 and 10) and a great deal of time is spent forming nice, cursive letters (copying lines of frequent letter pairs to lean how to join them properly and nicely for example). I'm not saying this is good or bad (I like cursive and am happy my kids are learning it, but would like they would also learn to touch type, which isn't taught in school), but I am saying that you write how you learned to write...
- cocoflunchy 11y agoI wouldn't say that everyone uses ballpoints, I used fountain pens during most of my education in France and so did most of my classmates. Many (most?) teachers still require their students to use fountain pens (one of the reasons is probably the fact that you can use an eraser, so it makes for cleaner papers...). Even after getting out of school, I don't use ballpoints if I can avoid them, because they're not as fast.
- bambax 11y agoAs I said in another comment, if you use a fountain pen in a business setting (as I do), people look at you funny. I was around 10 when erasers first appeared, and they were strictly forbidden during all my school years, because they tended to make a big mess (or a hole) in the paper. We were told to strike errors properly, with a ruler. Today it's true that they are permitted, to my amazement. Among my children's teachers, some recommend fountain pens, some say they dislike it, but mostly kids can use what they like best.
- madaxe_again 11y agoLikewise - British here and fountain pens were compulsory - first and only thing I wrote with until I left school. Everything had to be handwritten, typing, pencil or ballpoint got you a fail. Regardless of the fact that I learned "joined up writing" from day zero, my handwriting still looks like a spider had an accident with an inkwell. Weirdly, identical to my uncle's. Since, I barely write - I type everything. Edit: also, this wasn't long ago. Finished school in 2001.
- Htsthbjig 11y ago"Fight for your Write” campaign—brought up an fMRI study suggesting that writing by hand may be better for kids’ learning than using a computer." How about writing by hand ON a computer? For me is totally stupid to teach kids to type on a keyboard, when in the present and near future you could use other faster and better means for writing, like this speech recognition I am using now or stenotype. The other day I saw a friend using a new prototype of a new digital stenotype on a maker space and I was sold instantly. This is the future. But children need to learn how to draw, and train their hands in precise manipulation. If you lose handwriting training when you are kid you also lose the ability of doing precise work with your hands as your brain will prune the neural connections with your hand as you don't use it. You can do that on a computer. Today we have affordable galaxy notes. I use an expensive Cinqiq, that will become much more affordable in the future. Training kids looking at the rear mirror makes no sense to me.
- Grue3 11y agoI call bullshit, in Russia people still write in cursive long after introduction of ballpoint pen, because that's what people are taught in school. It also happens to be much faster than print, regardless of the writing implement, so that helps too.
- IshKebab 11y agoSame in the UK.
- benplumley 11y agoWe were certainly taught cursive, but I don't know a single person who still uses it other than me. Their writing is (for the most part) slow and legible, mine is fast and almost unreadable. More so when I use a fountain pen. Still, it's moot - as the article author said - because I haven't had to handwrite more than my own name in the last 6 months.
- alextgordon 11y agoThere are three styles... AmE BrE =========== =========== Italic Cursive Calligraphy Connected ??? Handwriting Unconnected Print What you do on forms...
- auganov 11y agoIn Poland, people in schools are too usually forced to write in cursive. But that doesn't mean people like it or are particularly good at it. I was amongst the not-so-few that just couldn't/wouldn't write legibly enough. Some teachers would just give you 0 points for stuff they didn't want to or couldn't read. The most ironic part is, most teachers (and most adults in the "real world") have terribly illegible cursive too. Say when they'd write a comment on your exam, I could rarely understand it. Usually you'd ask some other students for their guess or just go ask the teacher.
- scholia 11y agoHas anybody switched to writing on a screen as a regular thing?
- mcguire 11y ago"And since the thin ink flows more quickly, I have to refill the pen frequently." While technically true, that fountain pens will use more ink, keep in mind that (a) ink is cheap, (b) refilling is easy, and (c) some[1] pens have a larger ink capacity. [1] http://asapens.in/eshop/fountain-pen/gama-ebonite-pens/gama-demostrator-fountain-pen http://asapens.in/eshop/fountain-pen/gama-ebonite-pens/gama-...