Pen Cap, Lid or Top?

[Sue Bell]

Always lid or later top, used the term since 1946! We had to have fountain pens at school in 1946 and they were always refered to as "your pen lid"..... never used cap. Lid is term I still use and most widely used too.

[Daisy]

Well it certainly looks as if it was called different things in different parts of the country!

[number 6]

I've always known it as lid or top where I come from, which is in the East Midlands.

[Spitfire]

Pen-lid for me.

[sixret]

Cap in classic GAD mysteries books.

Lid in modern books.

I have come across the word of topless. But not pen top.

I am not British so I go with my reading.

[Rob Houghton]

well I suppose as Enid used the word 'cap' at least once, I guess I'll have to go with 'cap' -- although I think 'lid' sounds more old-fashioned...

I guess a propelling pencil would still have a 'cap' and not a 'lid' lol!!!

Groan! I didn't realise this was such a contentious issue!!

[Anita Bensoussane]

When I was at school (1970s-80s) we called pens which took cartridges "cartridge pens". I only came across the term "fountain pen" (sometimes written "fountain-pen") in books. My cartridge pen had a "lid", though I'd sometimes say "top". The same applied to biros, etc. I did see/hear "cap" in books and on TV programmes though, so I was used to that too.

[floragord]

I hadn't consciously thought of what we called the item until now, but definitely cap!, probably stems from past memories of exams when the invigilator called "stop writing and cap your pens this instant"

[Moonraker]

Groan! I didn't realise this was such a contentious issue!!

It wouldn't be if you didn't refuse to accept the proper name!

[Rob Houghton]

No one has really said if a propelling pencil would have the same thing though. I guess it would!

Anyway, it got people thinking!!

Now we just need as many people to comment on the Journal thread or the Teachers World thread!!

[Daisy]

I don't think propelling pencils have caps/tops. The lead retracts into it's protective sheath (for want of a better name!)

[Julie2owlsdene]

Now we just need as many people to comment on the Journal thread or the Teachers World thread!!

I think a lot of the people who take the Journal don't visit the forums Rob, so therefore you won't get any feedback from these people.

If everyone who took the Journal visited the forums, then the thread would be much longer.

[Rob Houghton]

I don't think propelling pencils have caps/tops. The lead retracts into it's protective sheath (for want of a better name!)

Some do - I have one.

[Daisy]

Yours must be a posh one, Rob!

[Courtenay]

Now we just need as many people to comment on the Journal thread or the Teachers World thread!!

Or the tea thread.