Article April 5, 1900 Issue

Miscellany

with contributions from John de Morgan, W. E Curtis

Do you know why the little pocketknives are often called penknives? Perhaps some of you have often wondered, and did not like to ask. You use a steel pen at school, but when Washington lived there were no steel pens. At that time, and until the year 1820, pens were made out of the quills or large feathers of the goose and other birds. Now these quill pens being soft, got out of order and split, so they had to be remade. Most writers kept a sharp knife to remake these pens, so the knives got to be called "penknives." The word "pen" is from the Latin word "penna," which means a feather; so when we say steel pen we talk of a steel feather, which is absurd, but then the language is made up of very funny words and phrases, and the little word "pen" is now used only for the piece of steel with which we write. What becomes of all the pens made? One firm in England makes two hundred million pens every year, and there are several other makers who send out nearly as many more; then in the United States we make at least two hundred millions every year. Where do they all go? It is not often that you can pick up old pens, and yet a vast number must be lost every day.—John de Morgan.

During the discussion of the Briggs heresy case some years ago I sought an interview with Mr. Moody on "higher criticism."

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