3 ms·

I wanted to know when pencil leads stopped by made of lead, and was surprised to learn that they never had been: Going back to an earlier point, when the graph

by nkurz 3y ago

I wanted to know when pencil leads stopped by made of lead, and was surprised to learn that they never had been: Going back to an earlier point, when the graphite was discovered the English thought they had unearthed a lead deposit, a misunderstanding caused because lead and graphite look uncannily similar in their natural form. It is because of this prevailing thought that the pencil was known as the lead pencil, a name that has endured until today.

kazinator 3y ago
My understanding had always been that there were never pencils where a rod of lead was encased in wood. However, in the Roman times, styluses were used for writing which were just sharpened rods of lead. Right or wrong, I pinned the etymology on that and didn't give it another thought. How can we be sure that someone's knowledge of those Roman-era instruments didn't influence the etymology of "pencil lead", in spite of the story about the graphite deposit? There are missing dots in the short explanation. I mean, between the time you discover a graphite deposit (thinking it might be lead) and the time you go to production with graphite pencils, you know very well that you're not dealing with lead. You would only persist with the naming as a deliberate inside joke. If so, who can say that the joke wasn't informed by historic knowledge of lead styluses?
- kwhitefoot 3y ago
  > You would only persist with the naming as a deliberate inside joke. Or you simply use it because then people will immediately understand what it is for?
- adrian_b 3y ago
  As tools for writing, normal styluses and lead rods, which were both used in Roman times, are distinct. A "stilus" (the modern spelling of the words "stylus" and "style" is a mistake, which was frequent when Latin words had been assumed to be Greek words with Modern Greek pronunciation) was a metal rod that was used to write on wax tablets. The Romans called it either "stilus" or "graphium", the latter form being directly borrowed from Greek. The Latin words "stilus" and "tabella" were used to translate the Greek words "graphion" and "deltos". The Greeks have learned to use wax tablets from the Phoenicians ("deltos" is a Semitic word) and the Romans have learned to use them from the Greeks. The wax tablets were the main method for writing texts that could be erased later. Besides such metal styluses that were used for writing by pressing soft materials, there existed a second kind of styluses, made of true lead metal. This second kind, which was much less common, is based on using a soft metal and a slightly abrasive tablet surface. Drawing with such a soft metal stylus leaves a trace of metal, exactly like drawing with a graphite pencil. For instance Pliny the Elder mentions such cases of using true lead rods for drawing, e.g. for drawing fine lines on a surface to guide the writing with ink on it, like the printed lines in some modern notebooks. Suitable soft metals are lead, silver, gold and platinum, but lead has always been many orders of magnitude cheaper than the others, so it has been frequently used for this purpose before the discovery of graphite. Graphite is softer than any of these metals, so it leaves much more visible traces, even without using a great pressure during writing. The metal styluses leave much finer traces than graphite, so they are less suitable for writing a text with good visibility, but they allow better control for fine details in drawings. While after graphite began to be used for pencils it immediately replaced most uses of soft metal styluses, the latter have remained popular until today for certain kinds of artistic drawings, the so-called metal-point drawings. The most popular metal for artistic drawings is silver, because it is much cheaper than gold or platinum, while producing higher-quality drawings than lead , graphite or charcoal. There are many such silverpoint drawings that are very beautiful.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    You have forgotten another form of carbon - charcoal. It’s not much used for writing, but it does have a niche with artists. The lead shadows of Pliny the Elder are similarly used by artists to do rough drafts before committing pen to paper. Particularly cartoonists, prior to photoshop layers.
  - somat 3y ago
    Fairly obvious in retrospect, however I never put the two together until I read your post. but the stuff is called "graph"ite, that is, the stuff you write with. boom, mind blown.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> because of this prevailing thought that the pencil was known as the lead pencil, a name that has endured until today Wait, so we didn't realise graphite and lead were different substances until after pencils were invented? Yet we never took that mix-up to the point of putting lead in pencils?
- oakashes 3y ago
  It didn't make any sense to me either. I found this article[1] which frames it a little more clearly: it's not that they thought graphite and lead were the exact same thing, it's that they thought graphite was just a particular type of lead that was useful for drawing when first discovered. 1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/ever-wondered-about-the-lead-in-pencils/2014/11/26/f8b5869c-548a-11e4-809b-8cc0a295c773_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/ever-wonde...
hackernewds 3y ago
that's good. because I've definitely eaten my fair share with my friends when we were kids. we used to have those cool ones that you click on the end and a sharp thin cylinder of 'lead' comes out. they were crunchy and entertaining at least

by nkurz 3y ago

kazinator 3y ago

My understanding had always been that there were never pencils where a rod of lead was encased in wood. However, in the Roman times, styluses were used for writing which were just sharpened rods of lead. Right or wrong, I pinned the etymology on that and didn't give it another thought. How can we be sure that someone's knowledge of those Roman-era instruments didn't influence the etymology of "pencil lead", in spite of the story about the graphite deposit? There are missing dots in the short explanation. I mean, between the time you discover a graphite deposit (thinking it might be lead) and the time you go to production with graphite pencils, you know very well that you're not dealing with lead. You would only persist with the naming as a deliberate inside joke. If so, who can say that the joke wasn't informed by historic knowledge of lead styluses?

kwhitefoot 3y ago
> You would only persist with the naming as a deliberate inside joke. Or you simply use it because then people will immediately understand what it is for?
adrian_b 3y ago
As tools for writing, normal styluses and lead rods, which were both used in Roman times, are distinct. A "stilus" (the modern spelling of the words "stylus" and "style" is a mistake, which was frequent when Latin words had been assumed to be Greek words with Modern Greek pronunciation) was a metal rod that was used to write on wax tablets. The Romans called it either "stilus" or "graphium", the latter form being directly borrowed from Greek. The Latin words "stilus" and "tabella" were used to translate the Greek words "graphion" and "deltos". The Greeks have learned to use wax tablets from the Phoenicians ("deltos" is a Semitic word) and the Romans have learned to use them from the Greeks. The wax tablets were the main method for writing texts that could be erased later. Besides such metal styluses that were used for writing by pressing soft materials, there existed a second kind of styluses, made of true lead metal. This second kind, which was much less common, is based on using a soft metal and a slightly abrasive tablet surface. Drawing with such a soft metal stylus leaves a trace of metal, exactly like drawing with a graphite pencil. For instance Pliny the Elder mentions such cases of using true lead rods for drawing, e.g. for drawing fine lines on a surface to guide the writing with ink on it, like the printed lines in some modern notebooks. Suitable soft metals are lead, silver, gold and platinum, but lead has always been many orders of magnitude cheaper than the others, so it has been frequently used for this purpose before the discovery of graphite. Graphite is softer than any of these metals, so it leaves much more visible traces, even without using a great pressure during writing. The metal styluses leave much finer traces than graphite, so they are less suitable for writing a text with good visibility, but they allow better control for fine details in drawings. While after graphite began to be used for pencils it immediately replaced most uses of soft metal styluses, the latter have remained popular until today for certain kinds of artistic drawings, the so-called metal-point drawings. The most popular metal for artistic drawings is silver, because it is much cheaper than gold or platinum, while producing higher-quality drawings than lead , graphite or charcoal. There are many such silverpoint drawings that are very beautiful.
- hinkley 3y ago
  You have forgotten another form of carbon - charcoal. It’s not much used for writing, but it does have a niche with artists. The lead shadows of Pliny the Elder are similarly used by artists to do rough drafts before committing pen to paper. Particularly cartoonists, prior to photoshop layers.
- somat 3y ago
  Fairly obvious in retrospect, however I never put the two together until I read your post. but the stuff is called "graph"ite, that is, the stuff you write with. boom, mind blown.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> because of this prevailing thought that the pencil was known as the lead pencil, a name that has endured until today Wait, so we didn't realise graphite and lead were different substances until after pencils were invented? Yet we never took that mix-up to the point of putting lead in pencils?

oakashes 3y ago
It didn't make any sense to me either. I found this article[1] which frames it a little more clearly: it's not that they thought graphite and lead were the exact same thing, it's that they thought graphite was just a particular type of lead that was useful for drawing when first discovered. 1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/ever-wondered-about-the-lead-in-pencils/2014/11/26/f8b5869c-548a-11e4-809b-8cc0a295c773_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/ever-wonde...

hackernewds 3y ago

that's good. because I've definitely eaten my fair share with my friends when we were kids. we used to have those cool ones that you click on the end and a sharp thin cylinder of 'lead' comes out. they were crunchy and entertaining at least