Bich and Biro

I was aware of the Vietnamese name Bich (pronounced closer to big with a soft fricative g than to bitch). I encountered it again today and wondered what the meaning is. Apparently ‘gemstone, jade’, which is quite nice. I then wondered about the Bic company, best known for ballpoint pens, cigarette lighters and razors. It was founded by Marcel Bich (pronounced beek) in 1945. That made me think about László Bíró (pronounced bee-ro), who lived long enough (1985) to become a household name. In fact, Bich died in 1994. As far as I can find, bic never became generic, as biro (pronounced bye-ro) did. I mentioned this to my closest colleague, and a stream of writing-implement-related puns followed. My colleague wondered whether Mr Bich (Italian-born French) and Mr Biro (Hungarian-born Argentinian) knew each other. Maybe they were

pen friends. (<haha)

In fact, they were, or at least they were business correspondents. Wikipedia reports: “Marcel Bich bought the patent for the ballpoint pen for US$2 million from Hungarian László Bíró who had been producing such pens since 1943 in Argentina.”

When I was young, I called them biros. Now I call them pens, or if necessary, ballpoint pens. In Korea, I encountered 볼펜s (bol-pen)s. Wikipedia gives biro British English, ball pen as Hong Kong, Pakistani, Indian and Philippine English, and dot pen as Nepali English.

Neither bic or bich seem to mean anything in French, but I was previously aware of biche (pronounced beesh), which means doe, as in …