{"id":23061,"date":"2023-09-08T14:29:07","date_gmt":"2023-09-08T14:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=23061"},"modified":"2023-09-08T14:29:07","modified_gmt":"2023-09-08T14:29:07","slug":"pens-and-pencils","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=23061","title":{"rendered":"Pens and Pencils"},"content":{"rendered":"

The words pen<\/strong> and pencil<\/strong> appear to be related, but are they? Let\u2019s find out.<\/p>\n

\"Pens<\/p>\n

The word pen<\/strong>, as in a writing implement, comes from Middle English penne<\/em> (pen, quill, wing, feather), from the Anglo-Norman penne<\/em>, from Latin penna<\/em> (wing, feather, quill pen), from Proto-Italic petn\u0101<\/em> (feather, wing), from Proto-Indo-European *p\u00e9th\u2082r\u0325\/pth\u2082\u00e9n-<\/em> (feather, wing), from *peth\u2082- <\/em> (to spread out, to fly) [source<\/a>].<\/p>\n

Words from the same roots include petal<\/strong>, petulant<\/strong>, petition<\/strong>, plume<\/strong>, plumage<\/strong>, fathom<\/strong>, feather<\/strong> and helicopter<\/strong> in English, adar<\/strong> (birds) and adain<\/strong> (wing) in Welsh, and Faden<\/strong> (yarn, thread, fathom, suture) in German [source<\/a>].<\/p>\n

The word pen<\/strong>, as in an enclosure for animals, comes from Middle English pen(ne)<\/em> (enclosure for animals), from Old English penn<\/em> (enclosure, pen, fold), from Proto-Germanic *penn\u014d\/*pannij\u014d<\/em> (pin, bolt, nail, tack), from Proto-Indo-European *bend-<\/em> (pointed peg, nail, edge).<\/p>\n

The English word pin<\/strong> comes from the same PIE root, as does the Dutch word pin<\/strong> (peg, pin), the German word Pinne<\/strong> (pin, pivot, tiller), and the Swedish word pinne<\/strong> (stick, peg, pin) [source<\/a>].<\/p>\n

The word pencil<\/strong> comes from Anglo-Norman, from the Old French pincel<\/em> (paintbrush), from the Vulgar Latin *penicellum<\/em>, from the Latin p\u0113nicillum<\/em> (a painter\u2019s brush, (style of) painting), a diminutive of p\u0113niculus<\/em> (brush, sponge), a diminutive of p\u0113nis<\/em> (tail, penis), from the Proto-Italic *pesnis<\/em>, from the Proto-Indo-European *pes-ni-s<\/em>, from *pes-<\/em> (penis) [source<\/a>].<\/p>\n

Words from the same roots include penicillin<\/strong> in English and other languages, pincel<\/strong> (paintbrush) in Spanish and Portuguese, pinceau<\/strong> (paintbrush) in French and Pinsel<\/strong> (paintbrush) in German [source<\/a>]. Penicillin<\/strong> and penicillium<\/em> are apparently so named because the spore of the fungi resemble brushes [source<\/a>].<\/p>\n

Incidentally, the French idiom s\u2019emm\u00ealer les pinceaux<\/strong> means to get one\u2019s wires crossed to get things all mixed up, to get in a muddle or to misstep. Literally it means \u201cto get tangled in the paintbrushes\u201d [source<\/a>].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The words pen and pencil appear to be related, but are they? Let\u2019s find out. The word pen, as in a writing implement, comes from Middle English penne (pen, quill, wing, feather), from the Anglo-Norman penne, from Latin penna (wing, feather, quill pen), from Proto-Italic petn\u0101 (feather, wing), from Proto-Indo-European *p\u00e9th\u2082r\u0325\/pth\u2082\u00e9n- (feather, wing), from *peth\u2082- […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85,102,104,107,111,116,10,15,26,33,34,41,44,45,46,64,67,216,77,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglo-norman","category-dutch","category-english","category-etymology","category-french","category-german","category-language","category-latin","category-middle-english","category-old-english-aenglisc","category-old-french","category-portuguese","category-proto-germanic","category-proto-indo-european","category-proto-italic","category-spanish","category-swedish","category-vulgar-latin-sermo-vulgaris","category-welsh","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23061"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23065,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23061\/revisions\/23065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}