Caroline Weaver: Why the pencil is perfect
Caroline Weaver: Perché la matita è perfetta
Caroline Weaver owns CW Pencil Enterprise, a wood-cased pencil specialty shop in New York City. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
of the experience of using a pencil,
importante dell'esperienza,
audible scratchiness.
suono graffiante.
the Pencil]
con alcuni strati di colore,
with some layers of paint
clay and water.
of people over centuries
centinaia di persone nei secoli
of collaboration
a very perfect object.
un oggetto davvero perfetto.
starts with graphite.
inizia con la grafite.
really useful applications
applicazioni molto utili
or sheepskin or paper
pelle di pecora o carta
nella scrittura e nel disegno
by farmers and shepherds,
of grinding the graphite,
per frantumare la grafite,
e acqua a formare una pasta.
and water to make a paste.
into a mold and fired in a kiln,
in uno stampo e cotta in forno,
estremamente forte
a really strong graphite core
that was smooth, usable --
that existed at the time,
di qualunque altra cosa all'epoca,
that's still used in making pencils.
per costruire le matite.
in Concord, Massachusetts,
a Concord, nel Massachusettes,
who came up with the grading scale
ideò la scala di gradazione
hardness for general use.
per un uso generale.
the more graphite it had in it,
più grafite contiene,
the line will be.
the more clay it had in it
they were made round.
erano fatte a mano, erano rotonde.
per crearle
who really mechanized the craft.
a meccanizzare davvero il processo.
to start developing actual machines
che sviluppò delle macchine
cut grooves into the wood,
scavassero i solchi nel legno,
it was easier and less wasteful
e meno dispendioso
to scratch away pencil marks
arrivò nel 1858,
Hymen Lipman patented the first pencil
Hymen Lipman brevettò la prima matita
was the KOH-I-NOOR 1500.
fu la KOH-I-NOOR 1500.
with 14 coats of yellow paint
di vernice gialla
in oro a 14 carati.
for being used by a lot of writers,
perché usata da molti scrittori,
and Vladimir Nabokov.
e Vladimir Nabokov.
the Dixon pencil company.
for the Dixon Ticonderoga.
when they think of a pencil
quando pensa a una matita
when they think of school.
a thing that, I think,
sia veramente l'oggetto
has never thought twice about,
non pensa due volte,
the way it is,
e al perché sia fatta così,
that can be done
che si possa fare
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Caroline Weaver - Author, pencil store ownerCaroline Weaver owns CW Pencil Enterprise, a wood-cased pencil specialty shop in New York City.
Why you should listen
Grown from a lifelong interest and opened in 2015, Caroline Weaver's shop has garnered the attention of the New York Times, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal and many other publications for its faithful dedication single object and its playful design. Weaver is also the author of The Pencil Perfect: the Untold Story of a Cultural Icon, a book on pencil history published by Gestalten in 2017.
Caroline Weaver | Speaker | TED.com