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> PEN AND PENCIL Interestingly, Swedish is closer to the Latin here. "Pensel" is a paintbrush, and both pen and pencil are called "penna". If necessary, they a
by LinAGKar 5y ago
> PEN AND PENCIL
Interestingly, Swedish is closer to the Latin here. "Pensel" is a paintbrush, and both pen and pencil are called "penna". If necessary, they are distinguished as bläckpenna (ink pen) or kulspetspenna (ball point pen) and as blyertspenna, which comes from the German "bleierz", meaning "lead ore", due to a misconception that they contain lead.
- mcv 5y agoIn Dutch, paintbrush is "penseel". Pen is pen, pencil is "potlood". "Lood" refers to the lead in the pencil (which isn't lead at all, of course).
- jaclaz 5y agoYes, but when around 1500 a graphite deposit was found, it was considered a particular kind of lead, hence the "lead" in the name in many languages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pencil#Graphite_deposit_discoveries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pencil#Graphite_deposit_discov...