Hey everyone!
I’m Japanese, and I love visiting stationery stores in different countries.
Of course, Japanese isn’t understood abroad, but surprisingly, even English doesn’t always help when I’m trying to ask for specific stationery items.
So, I’d love it if you could tell me the names of stationery-related terms in your language.
For example, a leadholder is called 「芯ホルダー（shinhoruda-）」, a drafting mechanical pencil is 「製図用シャープ（seizuyou sya-pu）」, a click-type mechanical pencil is 「ノック式シャープペンシル(nokkushiki sya-pu)」, a twist-type mechanical pencil is 「回転繰り出しシャープ(kaitennkuridashishiki sya-pu)」, the push button is 「ノックボタン(nokku botan)」, and the tip sleeve is 「口金(kuchigane)」…
I’d love to learn how these terms are said in different languages.
I’m currently studying German, so I’m especially interested in stationery terms in German. But I’d also love to learn them in French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Korean… and many other languages!
Please share them with me!
When I travel, I usually search for stationery shops on Google Maps in advance.
In Japanese, I use keywords like 「文具店」(stationery shop), 「文房具店」(stationery store), 「筆記具店」(writing instrument shop), 「画材店」(art supply store), and 「製図用品」(drafting supplies).
What keywords should I use in your language to find similar shops? I’d really appreciate your help!
Before I had access to proxy services I was hunting a lot on eBay’s various country sites. Some basic terms I’ve kind of memorized include:
German
druckbleistift / feinminenstift = mechanical pencil
fallminenstift = drop clutch pencil
kugelschreiber = ballpoint
Italian
portamine = mechanical pencil
penna s’fera = ballpoint pen
French
portemine or criterium ← the famous leadholder name became the generic term
Spanish
boligrafo - ballpoint pen
portaminas - mechanical pencil
Turkish
versatil kalem - mechanical pencil
tükenmez kalem - ballpoint pen
In Portuguese
Lapiseira (lah-pee-zhey-ra) is more common. Plural: lapiseiras, just add an S.
you can also use
Porta Minas (póhr-tah-mee-naz) but it’s not so frequent, slightly more archaic? It literally means lead-holder.
In Spanish, portaminas is used for both mechanical pencils and lead holders. Stationery stores are called “tiendas de papelería”.
Seeing your Twitter posts I was very surprised about what you found in Germany. Clearly Germany has a deeper tradition related to stationery, with brands like Faber Castell and Kaweco, but I’ve travelled a lot around Spain and I rarely found any interesting pens. The most I found were some discontinued Lamys, like the scribble or the studio multipen. Looking at our national brands, Inoxcrom and Milan, they’ve steered away from interesting products and veered towards cheap or stationery for presents. Their old products are almost never seen in stores.
It wasn’t so much that I was looking for Spanish brands specifically – though I did manage to obtain a couple of Inoxcrom – I was looking for ANY interesting brands that may have proliferated across European markets. For example, I found my full set of Tombow Object 202 rollerballs, some Niji w-knocks and Parafernalia oddities from Italian sellers. I think my Aurora Thesi and Hastil were also from Italian sources. I found some interesting technical style pens and pencils on eBay.es… which I have never found back again…
The ‘hardest’ foreign marketplace I’ve tackled so far is Thailand. The Thai language script is unrecognizable to me, and I had to use Google Translate on a second window (no real-time plug-ins back then), plus bank transfers to complete the purchase. Next hardest was Turkiye… the address for my proxy postbox was a nightmare.
Another earlier German term for leadholder is Sparstift. I don’t know if this was originally a brand name of a particular manufacturer’s pencil (Kaweco maybe?) but it seems to have become a more widely used generic term.
The term Füllstift was also used, as seen on this pack of refill leads:
Very quick note: it is “penna a sfera” (pen with a spherical tip), whereas “penna stilografica”, or “stilografica” is how we call fountain pens.
Also, mechanical pencils with thin lead cores can also be called “Matita a micromina”, or “Matita con micromina” (literally: micro-lead pencil).
Finally, people may often say just “Matita” — which, strictly speaking, is referring to wood-cased pencils — especially when they are pointing at some mechanical pencils (you know, hand gestures…); this can generate quite a mess when one wants to filter search queries on our local Ebay or similar platforms.
ahah @Leonov had no idea. I thought matita was just for MPs.
Does “sparstift” have anything to do with savings/accounting in a context of what certain pencils were meant for, like a “copying pencil” would?
Sparstift is likely just a metaphor. There is a saying (still used today in newspapers) “den Sparstift ansetzen” which means “to begin cutting costs / saving up”.
And I doubt that it’s really an old term. The first use I can find is around 1960.
(edit: i searched for use in language, which is maybe also important to make a guess on how popular/well known this pencil was?)
Likewise, “Rotstift” has a similar or identical meaning (next to literal ‘red pencil’) and appeared at around the same time.
I think it was more a marketing term to suggest that the pencil would save the user money. After the initial outlay on the holder, the cost of refills would be more economical than buying individual wooden pencils.
Lexikaliker has three good posts on the Sparstift here:
https://www.lexikaliker.de/?s=Sparstift
Naturally, the traditional pencil manufacturers disputed that the Sparstift really saved any money, at the same time as questioning its usability.
A very nice peek into the advertising shenanigans back in those days. I recall somewhat similar bickering in the 1960s between Koh-I-Noor USA and J.S. Staedtler when the latter tried to challenge the durability and usability of Rapidograph pens in their ads… KIN responded vigorously with a full spread ‘lab report’ that disputed every single claim for the MARS 500 product.
It’s funny that Google automatically translated Haack Sparstift as “Haack Economy Pencil”. Is that thing getting smarter?
Danke @Alan und @perpetuallypencil
Thank you for the lexikaliker-link.
It is definitely interesting how the purpose of the Sparstift (cut costs on the pencil) differs from how it entered the standard langauge a few decades later (cut costs with the metaphorical pencil).
Like your article suggests, Haack likely coined and invented the “Sparbleistift” in 1930 ( DE523415). At least Keller & Co continue improving on it in 1935. They write in one of their patents:
Dreh- oder Schiebebleistift mit langen Minen, einen sogenannten “Sparbleistift”. Fast alle auf dem Markt befindlichen Sparbleistifte haben den grossen Nachteil, … (Keller & Co., 1935, DE1379727)
Which means that not only are there at that point multiple different types of this pencil (unclear if all were still by Haack), but the Sparbleistift has also already become a more broader term for a pencil with refillable, long leads of unspecified mechanism, further shown by “STEIN Sparbleistift” having a clutch mechanism.
Unless, of course, that was always the definition to begin with: Haack’s advertisement of a woman holding very long leads in her hand (10cm, almost 4 inches) shows that it definitely was intended as a main selling point (next to being cheap), whereas its ring mechanism was not highlighted…
By the way, Haack’s patent was also used for the “Everite Ring action” pencil. (great britain)
We can discern the same advantages advertised: Long lead, Saving pencil, NO sharpening and so on.
But, interestingly, in contrast to the Sparbleistift not presenting its mechanism much at all, Everite’s main selling point is the ring action, at least from what’s available to see online:
Oh, I just saw it’s you who runs the graphography website. I thought I should add this connection here.
By the way, on my request, “Sparstift” is now part of the DWDS dictionary. Yay!
in canadian french we also say pousse-mine!
Remarkable ad that really telegraphs the times! It really conveys that astonishment of advancement beyond wooden pencils. “No sharpening! No waste of wood & lead! No loss of time!”