Talk:Pencil sharpener

A fact from Pencil sharpener appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 23 February 2004. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that a pencil sharpener "is a device for sharpening a pencil's point by shaving the end of the pencil"? Well, all right, you probably did.

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2004/February.

Wikipedia

the picture floating on the left side[edit]

the picture floating on the left side messes up one of the headings, someone might want to fix that (i've got some AP Gov't hoemwork to do...) ugen64 02:37, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

Could be worse - you could have electromagnetics (shudder) →Raul654 02:43, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

And on the right it was overlapping with previous image (on 1280*1024 screen res). I moved it down. Pete/Pcb21 (ta lk) 10:30, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Pencil Sharpener History[edit]

Wikipedia states "One source claims that the Hammacher Schlemmer Company of New York offered the world's first electric pencil sharpener...sometime in the early 1940s." While there is a source on the internet that makes that claim, the claim is obviously incorrect. Wikipedia provides a link to the Early Office Museum web site, which shows a 1917 advertisement for an electric pencil sharpener as well as photographs of other electric pencil sharpeners marketed before the 1940s. The lesson is that cannot write an accurate history by collecting contemporary statements from the internet.

Are pencil sharpeners unidimensional?[edit]

3 dimensions should be given, IMHO Jclerman 16:01, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia history: First "Did you know?"[edit]

Per WP:DYK, this was the first article featured in "Did you know?" on the Main Page. Curt Wilhelm VonSavage (talk) 11:52, 22 November 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Pencils are not 2-dimensional either[edit]

Carpenter's pencils don't have a flat shape.

I suggest "their flattened shape" or "their flattened cross-section". Ellipsoid would be good instead, too, but I think flattened is perfectly find (i.e. to imply it's flattened from a circular cross-section).

Comments? Best wishes. SimonTrew (talk) 04:25, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Mechanical" sharpener- nomenclature[edit]

Surely an electric pencil sharpener is also mechanical. Should this not be a "manual" pencil sharpener?

Best wishes SimonTrew (talk) 06:10, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ubiquitous in American schools[edit]

Is it significant enough to be included that in U.S. schools, planetary pencil sharpeners are in most every class-room, whereas in many other countries, if pencils are commonly used in schools, individual students use prismatic pencil sharpeners? If this is considered significant, then references will have to be dug up. Kdammers (talk) 04:48, 10 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]