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Comment by jypepin | Hacker News Reader

I grew up in France, where schools don't allow you to use anything else but fountain pens.

They don't teach you how to use one - to me, it's always been the same thing as using a ball pen, except you trade the convenience (you have to change the ink cartridge) for practicality (you can erase the ink with special eraser) while keeping some style (it's still ink, not pencil, kept for drawing).

Getting a new pen felt weird at first, but just like a new pair of shoes, you end up accustomed to it.

So it's interesting to read about fountain pens in America, where people talk about having to "learn" how to write with a fountain pain. It's seen as such a special, luxury or just nerd thing, while in France, it's just something common nobody really pay attention to.

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This also explains why Americans tend to doubt the usefulness of learning cursive writing: it is feels terrible and is quite slow when using ball point pens, but smooth and fast with a fountain pen.

> the usefulness of learning cursive writing

Honest question - What do you see about it as being useful? I was taught to write in cursive when I was younger but I honestly don’t feel like it has ever been all that useful (especially given that most of my communication and writing is done on a computer/smartphone).

It's much faster when you learn it properly and write it with the proper instrument. Ball point pens are awful for cursive, but when writing with a fountain pen you'll almost automatically switch back to cursive.

I've never used a fountain pen, how well do they work for lefties? I sometimes have problems smearing ballpoint ink with my palm, do fountain pens smear more, less, or about the same?

I’m a lefty and fountain pen smearing is an issue. Doubtless there are techniques and inks to optimize for quick drying better than I managed, so I’d encourage you to try and find out for yourself. It depends on how you’re able to position your hand and I’ve only ever managed to write by dragging either all the time or inadvertently when trying to keep my palm raised. It’s a shame because the pens and their output can be quite elegant.

Not really. I also was forced to use a fountain pen in primary school (UK). A strange hold over since only penmanship hipsters use them in real life, and everyone used them to flick ink on everyone's white shirts.

Anyway back to the point, cursive - or "joined up writing" as we call it - is used by most people into adulthood even though nobody uses fountain pens past primary school because it is quicker than printing.

I too went to school at a time when fountain pens were the only permissible writing instrument. Now I use a fountain pen mostly to write my daily journal, and have pampered myself by buying a nice (at least relatively) fountain pen and a couple of bottles of good ink. I love writing with this pen and ink combination. When I hear about fountain pens as a hobby and how the hobbyists like to collect pens and inks, somehow I cannot relate to this at all. For me, now that I have found a fountain pen that I like, my focus is set entirely on the writing and never do I feel the urge to go get another fountain pen. I will think about another fountain pen only if the current one is lost or broken.

I had to use a fountain pen in elementary and middle school in Austria and hate-hate-hated them. Switched to ballpoint pens in high school and finally got rid of the constantly ink stained fingers and dried up and bent tips. It's also when I switched back from writing cursive to printed letters.

I later retried using a fountain pen in university under the assumption that perhaps I've used too much force or I was using low-quality pens, but the result was still the same, minus the bent tip perhaps. Good riddance!

Yeah, me too, and my kids are learning to write with fountain pens to this day. Getting familiar with the process of using a fountain pen while very young, demystifies the object. I still love to write with a fountain pen and own plenty.

As a kid it's kind of fun to get your hands dirty with ink, even fighting with cartridges (pressing them like toothpaste tubes and the like).

Recently I designed a blotter and started selling it on Amazon (Europe) this month; it's a completely niche product but it's selling a little nonetheless, meaning there's some demand for it.

Thanks for posting that. I'd no idea fountain pens were the standard in some countries.

I had the opposite discovery when I went to work in Spain and colleagues ogled my basic Parker pen like I was a prince or something.

It's not a panacea in France though, since people usually buy their kids cheap ones which leave a lasting bad impression. Many people get very defensive about handwriting and that is partly accountable to the terrible fountain pens they had to learn with.

Fountain pens were very common in Spain too not so long ago. I went to school in the 80s and many children had fountain pens. Erasable pens mostly finished with them, and nowadays children learn writing in a very different way (they start writing in caps, and only later they learn cursive).

> you can erase the ink with special eraser

Err, there exist erasable ball-point pens too, such as Pilot's Frixion line.

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