A Blackwing Most Gauche and Sinister…
December 30, 2011 7 Comments
I have seen more than a few “left-handed” pencils—that is to say, pencils whose labeling reads from the ferrule to the point. But it’s the “right-handed” pencil (for the adroit and dexterous among us) that seems much more common today.
The orientation of the ferrule on this mollydooker’s pencil is likely due to an error that occurred during assembly. I don’t know how frequently this happened but I imagine that the sinistral pencils were either weeded-out by quality control, or perhaps it happened infrequently enough that no one seemed to mind. The position of the imprint is a bit goofy, but you’d likely have no problem writing with this linkisch pencil.
This is the only one I’ve seen in person but I’ve heard tell of other lefty Blackwings, suggesting it’s a less-than-rare occurrence. I wonder, though, if the frequency correlates with something as localized as a particular production run, or if “Backwardwings” were evenly distributed across the Blackwing’s 65-year lifespan.
I bought a bunch of blackwings several years ago and had about 3 or 4 in the batch. I still have one. I suspect it is a combination of error during assembly and inspection, because there were many other pencils with other errors like broken and bent ferules.
Thanks for confirming that!
Post Scriptum
In case anyone was wondering, the subtext for this post was a small sampling of the many colorful words and expressions that have meanings associated with “left” or “left-handed”: gauche (French for “left”, but also suggests “awkward”); sinister (Latin for “left”); goofy (American slang for standing on a skateboard or surfboard with the left foot at the back); and linkisch (German for “awkward”, the stem is derived from “links”, which is “left”).
“Mollydooker” (also, “mollieduker”) is an Australian expression for a left-handed person. It’s essentially a kind of insult (though my feeling is that it’s a mild one). There is a related expression, “mollycoddle” (to treat someone indulgently, or an effeminate man), but they both suggest a weakness or softness. It seems that “Molly” (the pet-name for “Mary”), in one sense carries with it 19th-century connotations of prostitution, referring back to the depiction of Mary in The Bible. But there is another, less pejorative explanation — that “molly” is derived from the Latin mollis, which means “soft”. So, “molly” (soft) + “dook” or “duke” (hand) = soft hand, or soft-handed.
On the other hand (sorry), “adroit” is from the French à droite (to the right). Words like “dexterity” and “dexterous” come from the Latin dexter (right-handed). What’s very interesting though, is that these expressions for “left” or “right” have mostly to do with “weak” or “strong”, “wrong” or “correct”, and “clumsy” or “capable” rather than simply meaning one physical side or the other.
There are many other symbols, words, and connotations for “left” as an expression of weakness, awkwardness, or evil. Even the word “ambidextrous”—being able to use both sides equally well—actually has a literal meaning closer to “right-handed (dexter) on both sides (ambi)”.
And, no. I am not a southpaw.
(Sources include Kennedy’s Word Stems Dictionary (2003) and the OED online.)
I never heard of linkisch or mollydooker, but I just remembered Diane Di Prima’s book of poems This Kind of Bird Flies Backwards. Not about a Blackwing though.
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As a left-hander and a Blackwing user, I’d love to see something like this! As it is, I have see the beautiful typography on my Blackwing’s barrel upside-down as I use it.
There are some obvious things that are easy to take for granted as a right-handed person, but it was only after this post (and your comment) that made me realize there are many other subtle things that left-handers might miss out on, too.