Spot the Frippet: ink.

 We're just surrounded by this stuff. Just about every physical page you see will have some kind of ink on it, making a dark trickle of connection and knowledge down the millennia. Even though so much of what we see in now online, we still spend twenty billion dollars a year on good old ink.

The first ink was free, and probably made of soot. The Ancient Egyptians were using it in about 2600 BC, and the Chinese have been using more sophisticated glue-bound inks for a few millennia.

Ming Dynasty Moon Goddess

In mediaeval Europe, ink involved oak galls (the homes of insect larva):

photo by Franco Folini

 and wine.

woodcut by Albrecht Durer

Ink is an easy spot - and an easy blot, too - and there are other inky things around. the inkberry is a kind of American holly with black berries; a shaggy inkhorn is a European mushroom.

In Australia an inky smudge is a judge.

Today is a day to appreciate the joys of ink.

Spot the Frippet: ink. This word comes from the Old French encre, from the Greek enkauston, a purplish ink, from enkaiein, to burn in.