I saw this advert for Montblanc in the latest issue of Harper’s Bazaar.
I was intrigued by the fact that the model is left-handed. I am not sure you would have seen a left-hander in an advert twenty five years ago. Not cooking, not playing sport, and definitely not writing. I guess ad agencies are moving to being more inclusive these days. I wonder if the left-handed model was a deliberate choice or if it was pure coincidence?
I love fountain pens but there is often smudge/smear on the paper my left hand when I write with wet ink. Furthermore, pen nibs are not always designed well for left-handers, who press harder and at a different angle. I have a special calligraphy pen for left-handers which works much better than the regular ones.
I also saw the headline below, and was gobsmacked because I always carry at least three pens. I am a teacher and a paper person though. I have noticed that most of my teaching rooms don’t have paper or pens anymore. Students bring laptops for notes, although they are not optimal for all exercises. I tend to have paper and pens in my handbag for students who need them, and would never consider going on holiday with no pen.
Remember when hotels had pens, writing paper, and envelopes in the rooms? I used to travel a lot, and used to collect one sheet of writing paper from each hotel I stayed at.
I note that there is nothing written on the other page. In normal, front-back sequential use of pages, you would write on that page first. I can see no other handed clues in the image, so it is possible the image has merely been mirrored because an art director felt that looked better…
I can’t read the writing on the page; that would be a handed clue, if you can.
Hmmmm… She does appear to be lifting the right-hand corner of the page, so maybe intending to turn to the next page, so maybe the image _isn’t_ mirrored. Of course, she could be turning back to a _previous_ page…
I’m a fellow leftie, but I have never suffered from smudging. The increasing use of the ‘power grip’ (rather than tripod grip) would certainly give rise to leftie smudging.
https://www.reddit.com/r/planners/comments/1es43so/why_do_so_many_in_the_planner_community_yt_ig/
I always _take_ a pen on holiday (and everywhere, come to that). Was the headline in a US article? ‘bring’ would be US English in this context.
That is interesting regarding the tripod vs power grip. I have always had a power grip, though I think most left-handed people in the past used the tripod grip. I have also used rather wet ink in the past. At school we used only pencils and fountain pens (I loved my Hifra) and I was always ending up with inky hands. I was so glad when ballpoint pens were finally allowed!
I think the article could have been American. It was in the Daily Fail and interestingly has a photograph of another left-handed person with rather a nice grip. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-15245523/why-bring-pen-holiday.html
Most of my students have got pen and paper although many of the kids use a tablet. I tend to work with photocopies in most cases and they tend to take a picture of the photocopy and they work on it on their tablets… I cannot be without pen and paper. I think better when I’m writing things down!