The answer to why a pencil sharpener tastes weird when you lick it!

Did you ever lick a metal pencil sharpener when you were a kid and wondered why it tasted funny but only in certain parts? Finally - here is the answer.

"I know the answer and actually it was much better on pencil sharpeners: it is bimetallic ELECTROLYSIS of the TONGUE… the sharpener blade is one alloy and the body (or the screws) are another, and when you place the two metals in a conducting liquid viz spit, the electrons travel from the cathode to the anode (or vice versa, or anyway something like that: google for correct direction) => the fizziness is CURRENT FLOW hurrah!!

why it happened on those tabs i don’t know… maybe they were bimetallic too, but i can’t see how: it was less powerful (actually possibly doing a proustian madeleine here: viz the TASTE of the tabs was the same as the TASTE of one of the metals in a pencil sharpener, but the fizziness was only on the pencil sharpener, but my memory is conflating and tranferring!!)
What would you lick?

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I can now rest easy. Goodbye, cruel world, my questions have all been answered :stuck_out_tongue:

That’s actually kinda neat. Thanks for sharing.

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I didn’t know that pencil sharpener licking was a thing. In my elementary school days (1960’s) in Winterpeg it was tricking kids into licking the flagpole or bike rack in the wintertime. A whole different experience. That and eating Elmers white glue that, at the time, smelled like peppermint.

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maybe it was a MB thing. i had the same experience growing up.

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lol never heard the licking the bike rack one until now. That’s pretty funny.

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You’ll shoot your eye out, kid.

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It seemed like every few weeks in the winter some poor kid (like my brother) would have his tongue stuck to the bike rack at recess and a teacher would have to come out with some warm water to rescue them. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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