Pencils have been around for centuries, and they've gone through dozens of evolutions to become the simple tool that we know today. Here are a few interesting facts about pencils, their origins, and their capabilities.
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Before erasers, writers removed pencil markings using bread crumbs.
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It is speculated that the word pencil comes from the Latin word pencillus, which means “little tail.” Another theory is that it is derived from the French pincel, meaning “little paintbrush.”
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Pencils can write underwater and in zero gravity.
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Graphite was discovered in England in the mid-16th century. An 18th-century German chemist named it from the Greek graphein, “to write.”
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The pencil was invented more than 400 years ago, in 1565.
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Pencil marks are made when tiny graphite flecks, often just thousandths of an inch wide, stick to the fibers that make up paper.
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Pencils no longer contain lead—the gray matter is made up of graphite and clay.
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The average pencil can draw a line that’s 34 miles long, write up to 45,000 words, and be sharpened 17 times.
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