“Tiny” means one millimeter or less: a tungsten carbide ball sintered (fused) at 1400ºC for hardness, then polished, but not perfectly smooth. The ball at the tip of a ballpoint pen is textured. Tens of thousands of tiny pits called divots on the surface are connected by channels to assure the presence of ink and to grip the writing surface. The ball fits into a machined brass socket that holds it snugly and ensures the consistent flow of ink from the internal reservoir.

A ballpoint pen exemplifies the marvel of precision engineering. It’s something I use every day but could never make myself, even if I could get the raw materials.

The quill pen was used for writing by my European ancestors in medieval times. I suppose I could stroll into the park next door, tackle a Canada goose (unwise), nab some feathers, and make my own pen. But a common ballpoint pen costs about a dollar (when you can’t get them free as a give-away), less than the medical care needed after a goose attack. In that way, acquiring a ballpoint pen shifts the danger of production onto other people. Sintering sounds potentially hazardous.

But — did the ball point pen kill cursive handwriting?

Probably. Cursive was originally developed to accommodate the limits and flourishes of quill, steel-nib, and fountain pens.

In “How the Ballpoint Pen Changed Handwriting,” Josh Geisbricht wrote (probably on a keyboard), “Fountain pens want to connect letters. Ballpoint pens need to be convinced to write, need to be pushed into the paper rather than merely touch it.”

Likewise, Justin Ohms wrote in his Medium column that fountain pens love gliding. “Cursive is a perfect match for this, flowing, continuous, it just happens to be the handwriting style that treats a fountain pen like it’s on a moving sidewalk.”

Myself, I was required to learn cursive as a child, but as an adult, I worked for a long time as a newspaper reporter back when we had no better technology for taking notes than a rugged (ballpoint) pen and paper. I learned to write fast, a jumble of block letters and ligature that incorporated shorthand strokes. Cursive is beautiful, but it’s artificial, slow, tedious, and unnecessary, and I have no more patience for it than today’s young people.