Saturday, July 02, 2005

pencils and their lead

did you know that hb stands for hardness and blackness. interestingly the word “pencil” may have come from the latin word pencillus which means little tail. this word might also be thought to refer to the word penis, which might also mean little tail, but not writing implement. supposedly.

there is a scale which moves from hardness to blackness
[talking about pencils here, not penii] [i think]

9H 8H 7H 6H 5H 4H 3H 2H H F HB B 2B 3B 4B 5B 6B 7B 8B 9B

note that HB is the standard writing pencil

7 comments:

PiesFan90 said...
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PiesFan90 said...

Derek Hall is the "Hall" that used to play for the cats in the 90's. He was bald as a badger, just like Barry and that's probably why you thought it was the same dude.

Relevance to this post? Pencils. I'm sure both Barry and Derek used a pencil in their lives.

Darcy said...

Brilliant. I just don't get the scale. Could you explain it better cause I reckon I could hve a lot of fun with that one.

Melba said...

ok as i understand it, it goes something like this.

the hardest penis, ooops sorry, pencil you can get is a 9H. The next less hard one is an 8H. It moves to softer and softer with H being like a 1hardness, then F for fuck knows, then the middle which is HB. I guess it's equal hardness and blackness [this is where blackness kicks in as opposed to greyness?] then progressing along, you start to get blacker and blacker up to 9B which is probably ugandan?

now you are probably more confused than ever...

Anonymous said...

I believe F is for fine, possibly for fine balance.

Melba said...

thanks anon - you a draughtie?

Anonymous said...

Nope, just crafty.