Assignment Four - Discussion

[Prof. Ryan Granger]

Please post your class discussion for Assignment Four below.

Make sure you answer the following questions:

1. Scissors are a game changing invention! What do you think would have been the hardest thing to cut before scissors and why?
2. Find a type of specialty scissors and tell us about them! The weirder the better!

Feel free to add more though!

[Jessica Barnes]

I believe the hardest thing to cut before scissors was women's hair, because women's hair was many different types from short to long, thin to thick, straight to curly. Women wanted different styles and different lengths.

The weirdest type of scissors I found are called Degree adjustable angle scissors. These are designed to cut at an angle and used for cutting tile, trim, PVC piping, Tack strips and other light material. I have never herd of these scissors before nor have I ever seen them.

[Prof. Tarma Amelia Black]

1. Scissors are a game changing invention! What do you think would have been the hardest thing to cut before scissors and why?
Along with Jessica, I feel that human hair was hard to cut before the invention of scissors. However, even before Roman days, and their invention of the cross-bladed scissors, I think that sheep wool would have been very difficult to 'harvest' from the sheep. When I do a bit of 'google' research, I find that the sheep were first shorn using sharp metal or glass to take tufts of wool off their bodies. So long before Roman days, back a few more centuries, I think it was the desire to sheer sheep more easily which developed those first scissors.

2. Find a type of specialty scissors and tell us about them! The weirder the better!
One of the funniest kind of scissors I've found is a multi-bladed shredding scissor. They have 5 blades, top and bottom, and are said to be able to slice through any kind of documents that you might wish to demolish. Made of stainless steel, they have extra sturdy grips to give you a good handle while shredding your papers.

[Prof. Kendra Givens]

1. Scissors are a game changing invention! What do you think would have been the hardest thing to cut before scissors and why?
Clearly, based on how many different kinds of fabric scissors there are, it would be difficult to cut fabric without scissors. There are thread snips, dressmakers' shears, and buttonhole shears. I had no idea that there needed to be such specific functions and level of sharpness for different fabrics or tasks, but it makes sense!

2. Find a type of specialty scissors and tell us about them! The weirder the better!
I was happily reminded of the colorful, dull, decorative scissors (link to image) that we used as children. Those that we used on the edges of paper (usually construction paper) to make little decorations and invitations. They're even made for tiny hands because they're meant to be used by children. Oh, how I miss them!

[Prof. Will Lestrange]

1. While Muggle paper is best cut with scissors, it is not that hard to tear it apart with your hands. With practice, Muggles can learn to tear apart paper with the tears resembling straight line cuts!
However, the analogue of paper known as parchment (used by us wizards and witches even today, but used by Muggles before they invented paper) is thicker and therefore much harder to tear apart with bare hands. Therefore I have to imagine that parchment was really hard to cut before the invention of scissors.

2. [OUT OF CHARACTER] One fall day in second grade, I was in art class and we were to cut things with scissors. But the only scissors I found had four letters inscribed into the metal, "LEFT". I was warned against using them but I wanted to try. No matter how hard I tried, I could not get the scissors to cut anything.

I would soon learn that I had stumbled upon a pair of left-handed scissors; although they looked no different from other scissors, the blades were actually placed in a different order from normal. This way someone could place fingers from their left hand (instead of their right hand) into the holes and use them to cut things! It's hard to imagine inanimate objects being left or right handed, but those were definitely left handed scissors!