Ink pen

[Rudolph C Troike]

Several years ago this topic came up, and I offered the anecdote of a
colleague (originally from New Jersey) who was traveling on a plane to a
meeting in Atlanta, and was asked by a young African American man in the
next seat if he had an "ink pen" he could borrow. My colleague, thinking that
he was referring to a pen that used liquid ink, apologized that he didn't
have one, but proferred a ball-point pen, which the young man readily
accepted.
        I don't recall ever having heard the term in South Texas (or
elsewhere), but as a pin=pen speaker, I recall having invented my own
mnemonic in the first grade to keep them apart in spelling exercises,
thinking "pen is to write with" and "pin is what you stick someone with"
(it sounds like I had a more pugnacious character than I did). I was
interested to hear Ron Butters' story of first-grade disambiguation
strategies, which certainly establishes a minimum datum for "ink pen",
even if not attested in print.
        I do think that I used the term "ink pen" on my own for
disambiguation purposes during the transitional period between refillable
pens that used ink and the new ball-point pens, as there was a need to be
specific when I referred to the former, which I long preferred. I can't
prove this, but it seems like a natural formation which anyone might have
independently created in that period, particularly if they had a momentary
lapse in remembering the formal term "fountain pen", which had presumably
come into use to distinguish these from the older "dip pen" -- here we are
into Safirian retronym territory. Of course "ball point pen", following
the usual course of affairs, has now become unmarked and is just "pen",
unless special circumstances call for it to be distinguished.

        Rudy