The best kind of
pen of all time. Invented by
László Bíró in
Hungary in the 1930s and originally marketed in
Argentina, where he and his brother emigrated in 1940 at the invitation of President
Agustín Justo. There they gave the Biro pen the brand name
Eversharp CA (capillary action). It was taken up and developed for the
RAF as a reliable superior replacement for the ungainly
fountain pen; and the apotheosis of the biro was when today's very cheap disposable version was mass marketed by Count
Marcel Bich in the early 1950s, in cooperation with the brothers, under the brand-name
Bic. Bíró's Eversharp pen company was finally sold to
Parker in 1957 but it is Bich's simple plastic tubes that carry on Bíró's legacy of genius.
Mr Bíró of course, being Hungarian, was pronounced bee-row, not by-row as we now say it, but I think being anglicised is further honour to his name.
It must be admitted however that one John Loud had essentially the same idea in 1888 but never managed to capitalise on it. What the Bíró brothers eventually managed to achieve and market was ink of a thickness that always worked, and a capillary action instead of gravity so that it could write at any angle. But a loud isn't as good a name for an everyday object as a biro, which has entered the language like hoover and walkman and sellotape. (Some people use bic generically in the same way.)
One of the three or four seminal inventions in writing, along with the alphabet, movable type and perhaps the pencil and typewriter, because some -- such as the Bic click-top kind of biro and to a lesser extent their regular tube brand -- are totally reliable and user-friendly. Few with any sense would choose to use any other kind of pen: no mess, no fading. Extremely cheap, sturdy, the acme of democratic access to literacy.