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A comment on The history of lead pencils and their lack of any actual lead. Parent comment

Re:The history of lead pencils and their lack of any actual ... by cancerhacker on Monday April 01, 2024 @02:13PM (#39897218)
I have the same thing in the palm of my hand - was bumping a pencil along a wall, also in fourth grade, ish. I knew it was graphite and wouldn't hurt me, but I was too afraid of it hurting to winkle it out, and it just healed over.
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Re:The history of lead pencils and their lack of any actual ... by nkurz on Monday April 01, 2024 @02:28PM (#39897414)
I spent some time puzzling over what "winkle" might be a typo for before realizing it was a British verb I was unfamiliar with:

"chiefly British : to displace, remove, or evict from a position"

Apparently the etymology is the periwinkles are difficult to remove from their shells: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/winkle

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Re:The history of lead pencils and their lack of any actual ... by dtgriscom on Monday April 01, 2024 @08:00PM (#39900877)
"She's horribly good at winkling."

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/7a2639f3-cf03-4223-bc46-5ae44b5...

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Re:The history of lead pencils and their lack of any actual ... by Arrath on Monday April 01, 2024 @09:48PM (#39901537)
As a child I was walking through my room and stepped on a fallen pencil, it rolled under my foot in just the right way: it shot out and stabbed me in the ball of my other foot!

Most random thing, and I've still got the dot these 30 years later.

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