>>Our grammar school had them, from the days of dipping nibs, but we used teh fountain pens that our proud parents had bestowed on us. Later, of course we all just used biros (ballpoints).
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>Same here - got a new penkalo (after mr. Penkala, the inventor of the fountain pen), which was somehow more stylish and serious than the chemical (just the adjective, feminine gender, because "chemical pen" was very rarely heard - ballpoint). I kept using fountain pens for the next dozen years, specially when I was teaching, because there was a good eraser for those available at the time. Any error in the class book was easy to fix :).

In UK we vacuum with a "Hoover" (trademark) (actually we "hoover" or "do the hoovering"), or use a mechanical "ewbank".
We stick things with "sellotape" (cf. US "Scotchtape") and there are any brand names that are used as verbs and nouns. Lie no-one says "ballpoint".

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>>>BTW, "inkwell" is another word that amuses me endlessly. How do you get ink from a well - with a bucket on a chain, or is there some pump on top of it? :)
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>>Who says a well has to be deep and full of water?
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>If you stare well into it, you may see a lot, even the error in your ways :).

Well, you may well stare well into a well, well into the afternoon, if all's well

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