Editing The Pen Addict 5/transcript (section)

== Listener Emails ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Cool. Yep. And we got a good email this week.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We got a very good email. This is actually, um, the fourth email in this series, um, that I've traded with our, our, our podcast listener, Lucas. Um, and what started this email chain, which I, you were, I think you were on some of them. I don't know that you got all of them, but what started this, um, this recent chain, he's emailed us before. Um, he's German and he jumped in on my pronunciation of Loist term, which I think is a more, I think I was close last time, but he actually was kind enough to do an MP3 recording of how to pronounce it and email it to me. So that was like, that was seriously cool. And, um, he put in an email about how all the pins he was currently using and like a huge description of each one, like the pilot Acroval, why he liked this, this, and this about it. And, you know, since he was a student, he tried out the pilot friction and, you know, it, it really helped him. So he was, he was thanking me for that. And then it got onto the topic of his, he was like, by the way, you know, in Germany where I'm at, you know, in school, we're brought up using fountain pens. And I mean, I'll read it, read his email real quick. Um, Lucas says, another thing came to mind yesterday that I wanted to ask you when you go to school in Germany for the first 10 years at age six to 16 in school. And for homework, you have to write with a fountain pen. No kids should write with a ball pen or similar writing devices because it is supposed to mess up your handwriting. When I was that age, 80 to 90% of my classmates, including me had Lamy fountain pens. When we, when we then entered the last three years of school, we were allowed to use ball pens and everyone switched to ball pens. The free ones that you get everywhere. The reason is simple. For most people in Germany, a fountain pen is a pen for children because it is the device you learn writing with. Um, he's in university now and he hasn't seen a single fountain pen in lectures or exams. Um, and I just found that fascinating. Um, that it's almost looked down on for older students to use the pen that they grew up with, where you and myself were like fascinated with fountain pens. And, you know, especially the Lamy's that, you know, the Lamy Safari was, you know, I knew the history of it. It was made for students. I mean, that was the whole purpose of that pen. That's why it came in the bright colors. And, you know, like the, some of the first colors I think were the primary colors, you know, red, yellow and blue barrels. Um, you know, cause they were, they were, they were making them for kids, but I didn't realize that there was this after effect, um, of just totally shutting out the fountain pen, um, for a while. So that whole topic was really interesting to me. I don't know how, how you grew up, you know, if you were forced to use any pen or anything like that. I know I sure wasn't.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, I mean, in my primary school for the first few years of primary school, we could only write in pencil. Mm hmm. Yep. No, I do remember that. Yeah. And then you had to, um, you had to prove that you could write in pen. Like if your handwriting was deemed to be okay enough, like if you could do joined, um, or cursive, I believe it's called cursive in America.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. Yes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Um, we just call it joined up. Um, if you can do that, then you, you, um, get like promoted to a felt tip type pen, a fine felt tip. Um, or like, um, even one of those or more, uh, more primarily, do you know the, the B roll, is it B roll handwriting pen? Or it's like a plastic tip type pen. Yes. Right. And we'd use those. Right. Um, and then after a couple of years of that, you could kind of just use what you wanted. But it's interesting because a fountain pen, um, is kind of the exact opposite to the second pen you'd want to give a child.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It gets everywhere. I would think so. And the, the maintenance and the refilling, I mean, if they're, you know, actively using them every day in school and for homework, they're going to run through a lot of ink and they probably have to have hundreds of cartridges in the classroom.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like I, I used to love, I've always loved fountain pens. I don't know why, but I used to, I had a couple of fountain pens when I was, when I was quite young. Um, and I was, I had to put newspaper down whenever I wanted to write with it at home because my mom was terrified I was going to ruin the carpet. Yeah, for sure. So I had to put like a sheet of newspaper paper on the floor and then I could put my paper down. Oh, I didn't. Also, as well, obviously the ink runs through and stuff.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And my kids come home from school as it is now with, you know, paint and food and everything all over their uniforms. I can imagine fountain pen ink all over everything all the time. I mean, that, that would be a nightmare. But, um, I don't know. Do Germans have better handwriting than us?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Maybe.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, maybe so.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Although Lucas does say, um, that his handwriting is terrible.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, he says his handwriting, yeah, his handwriting is still bad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, but that, that was funny. We've, we've gone back and forth and I explained to him that no, we didn't, we didn't have anything like that at all. And in fact, you know, we weren't as, I don't even recall being as strict as, uh, you know, what you went through having to, you know, kind of graduate up a lot. A little bit into, you know, certain types of pens. I think, you know, we were forced to use pencil for probably a few years. And then after that, I think it was more open.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Um, you know, no, no proving of, of writing style or, or anything like that. So.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like I remember when we used to have handwriting lessons and they'd make you write in italics. I used to hate that. I used to hate writing in italics.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's like, why would you do this? I remember as a kid, I was like, why would I write? I'm never going to write like this. Why are you teaching me it? I know.