A visual history of the safety pin

museumofeverydaylife.org

32 points·andsoitis··11 comments

In Castilian Spanish it's called "imperdible" which means unlossable/unmissable, which results in the ironic occurrence of finding a lost one or losing yours.

I have a huge (4 inches/10 cm) brass safety pin with a number stamped into it. Apparently these were once used to tag bags of laundry in the military and industry.

Its history is impressive but I used safety pin maybe few times in my lifetime and fail to see a single practical use nowadays, opposite to e.g. matchstick.

I have used them for the following:

* Holding a bandage in place

* Temporary clothing fix (broken fly, broken strap)

* Keeping hotel curtains together to block out light

* Popping a SIM tray

* Pinning something inside clothing when travelling in risky areas

It is rare to need one, but they take up no space so I pop one in my bag.*

Some overlap with small binder clips.

"zicherka" (how is it called in your country?)

"safety pin"

Hungarian:

"zicherájsz tű" [zixɛra:ʲs ty:] < "zicher" (Deutsch) + "tű" in Hungarian meaning "pin"

"biztostű" [bistoʃ ty:] in de-germanized form and "biztosító tű" [bistoʃi:to: ty:] in more formal register.

sorry, it's "sicher" in German

"ziherica" or "zihernaldla" from german sicherheitsnadel. We also have a direct translation of 'safety pin'.

"Seguro" in Mexico. It also means "certain", "safe", or "sure".

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