Date:  Tue, 12 Apr 1994 23:00:57 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: ink pen



Like me, Don Lance is a Valley Boy. To clarify my earlier note, I have never

used "ink pen" either, like Don using "fountain pen". However, I remember

very vividly making up my own private mnemonic in first grade (in those ancient

days, most kids did not learn to read at the age of 2), that <pen> was what

you write with, and <pin> was what you could stick someone with. So when I

first encountered "ink pen" in East Texas, it seemed a perfectly natural

label which neatly disambiguated the two. The times I have heard it from

Southerners and South Midlanders (if such exist), it has been a seemingly

normal label, not a stressed disambiguator. The first time my New Jersey-

origin colleague here heard it, he interpreted it as an attempt to distinguish

a fountain pen from a ball-point pen.

        --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu)