The article below only applies to the naming of Pen Spinning tricks in English. Pen Spinning nomenclature other languages maybe significantly different from the method for English, so please be aware of this difference.

The English names given to various tricks in Pen Spinning can be quite confusing to new comers to the sport. Sometimes, even Pen Spinners with years of experience may also fall into naming traps.

Before we see what the general format of Pen Spinning tricks names are like, let’s first define a few terms:*

• Trick: The subsequent movement of the pen through space, generated by a one-time external force, with this external force originating usually from parts of the hand, such as the fingers.
• Combination: The action of performing two or more “Tricks” in succession
• Family: A name given to tricks that categorized together in Pen Spinning nomenclature
• Normal (trick): The variation of trick in a given family of tricks that is considered to be the easiest variation to learn. When learned, it serves as a solid foundation for learning other tricks within the same family. The Normal variation of tricks has the same name as its family name.
• Default trick: A normal trick that has a special fingering designation. The default is the easiest to learn among the normals
• Optional: words that describe how the trick deviates from the standard
• Family Name: the name of the family of tricks in which a particular trick is categorized into
• Numbers: numbers used to denote the fingers involved, and/or the number of spins the trick would contain

In Pen Spinning, both words and numbers are used in combination to describe a trick. Words or combination of words are generally used to describe the category in which a particular trick would fall under, or how that particular trick deviates from the “standard” of the category. On the other hand, numbers are usually added to the name to indicate which fingers should be used and how they would be used.

The formats of naming can be summarized with the following:

Note: The number of spin can be inserted before an optional term, provided that the optional term is after the family name. (i.e. Fingerless Thumbspin 1.5 Reverse is valid)

Optional Terms

Optional Terms Categorization
Optional terms are usually adjectives used to describe a particular trick inside a large “trick” family. Some examples include “twisted” “inverse” “double” “fake” “fingerless” and “normal”. While most of optional terms are required to be inserted only before or after the family name (due to traditional convention), some terms (such as “double” or “triple”) may be inserted either at the front or back of the family name freely.

With regard to the definitions of terms, the adjectives can be divided into three categories.

• The first category of adjectives includes adjectives that have standard definitions, and can be inserted in front of many family names. (ex. Normal, reverse, inverse) For example, the word “reverse” simply means that the pen would reverse the path of that of the “normal” trick.
• The second category contains adjectives that may not have definitions on its own, but when attached with a family name, the resulting compound noun would be associated with a certain physical appearance. (e.g. twisted, fingerless)
• The third and final category comprises of adjectives that have several loose usages and thus no standard definition (fake, double)

Optional Terms Usage
Optional terms may be used in combination to modify the family name; however, sometimes the order in which the terms are inserted can also become significant. For instance, by traditional convention, “Inverse Twisted Sonic” may not be referred by “Twisted Inverse Sonic”, since these two may be considered as different tricks. In the former case, the trick would be considered as the “inverse” of a “Twisted Sonic”, whereas in the latter case, pen spinners would think more of it as a “twisted” version of the “Inverse Sonic”.**

Optional Terms Special Cases
In special cases, the usage of adjectives can be entirely omitted. In such cases, the name would refer to the default “Normal” trick within that particular family. For example, using the word “Sonic” in the context of a trick would imply that the trick is “Sonic Normal 23-12” (more on the numbers later), and not any other trick.

However, for any other trick that is not the default trick in a particular family, adjectives must be included so to indicate the trick’s variance from the default trick. Using the phrase “Inverse Sonic” would signify to others that you are going to talk about the “Inverse Sonic Normal 23-12” (which has the easiest fingerings for all Inverse Sonic Normal), and not other variations such as “Inverse Sonic Reverse” or “Inverse Sonic 34-23”. Similarly, if one wants to talk raise a discussion on the “Shadow Reverse”, others would see that as a discussion on “Shadow Reverse 12-12” (which is considered to be the easiest of the Shadow Reverse variations)

Optional Terms Examples*

• Normal: default direction and method of a trick (usually the easiest method)
• Reverse: performed with opposite direction of that of normal
• Inverse: performed with opposite side of the same hand
• Fingerless: performed without push by any of the fingers or thumb
• Double: trick with two rotations, or 720 degrees, in a 2-dimensional plane

Family Name

Family names are either a single word or combination of words that represents a group of tricks that either share similar appearances or similar concepts. They could eitherbe :

• created by combining smaller words into one word to describe the appearance or movement of the tricks within the family
• created arbitrarily, with names often having some association with the appearance of the tricks within the family

Examples of the 1st case are “Indexaround” and “Backtap”. The name Indexaround would intuity suggest that pen is going “around the index finger” and the name Backtap may mean “tapping the pen with something to do with the back of the hand” (whether or not the pen is tapped with the back of the hand, or whether it is spun on the tap of the hand is something we are not sure just by looking at the name, but nonetheless we would have an idea of what the trick is about with the words “back” and “tap”)

While words such as Indexaround give us clues on what the trick is about, arbitrary names such as “Sonic” and “Spider Spin” would hint little at what the trick would look like. From what I have heard, the Pen Spinner that gave Sonic its name, Hideaki Kondoh, did so because the pen seems to move very fast in between the fingers. The creator of the Spider Spin, Kam, named his trick this way because the hand creates a posture that reminds one of Spider Man shooting his web, and obviously not because the pen spins around a spider.

It seems like tricks that are of higher originality are usually named arbitrarily. However, exceptions to this observation do exist, such as the case for the original “Backaround” and “Triangle Pass”.

Numbers

Numbers are used in two primary ways when naming. The first way designates the starting/ending finger positions, and the second way signifies the number of rotations caused by a single push (please see note on number of rotations).

Finger positions
In Pen Spinning nomenclature, numbers are assigned to individual fingers. The numbers “1”, “2”, “3”, “4” represent the index, middle, ring, and pinky fingers respectively. This is coincidentally how one would read fingerings in a strings (violin/cello etc.) composition. Furthermore, the letter “t” denotes the thumb.

The space in between two fingers is represented by putting two finger-numbers together. In other words, “34” would represent the space between ring and pinky fingers while “t1” would correspond to space between thumb and index. When we start a Pen Spinning trick by holding the pen with our ring and pinky fingers, we say that it starts at “34”.

Two of these number pairings, and a hyphen in between, would tell us where the finger positions are, before and after the trick. The notation “34-12” would intuitively mean holding the pen with ring and pinky fingers before the trick and catching the pen with the index and middle fingers. This notation would always be placed in the back of a trick’s name.

Number of Spins
Generally speaking, a number to indicate the number of rotations by a trick is inserted when the trick has more rotations than the default normal trick. Sometimes, adjectives like “double” and “triple” are added in place of a number. Of course, these words cannot be used together with a number due to redundancy problems (ie. One would not say “Thumbspin 1.5 Double”). It must be noted that “double” does not exactly mean “2.0”. This is because they are not always interchangeable.

Capitals

Technically, for family names that are formed by two smaller words, capital letters should be used for the two initial words (e.g. ThumbSpin vs. Thumbspin). However, the latter is more convenient and is now widely accepted as valid.

Naming Trends

So far, the finger positions of trick naming does not include distinction between left and right hand. So, a Pen Spinner faces the problem of naming precisely a trick that sees the pen go from 34 of one hand to 34 of another hand (such as Sonic transfer that goes from one hand to the other). Here’s what I see coming in the future:

• “l34-r34” to denote left hand’s 34 to right hand’s 34
• “34-elbow” to denote an ending position formed by things other than fingers, in this case, the elbow
• “23-” to denote a trick that has no special ending position, such as an air trick that is not catched by any part of the body.

Pitfalls

Special combos have unique names, and sometimes these unique names can be mistakenly interpreted to be a trick. Combos names such as “Fake Triple” can be deceiving, since it has the adjectives used most commonly by tricks. With one more glance though, one could easily realize that it has no family name. This fact would signify that it’s probably not a trick. Because of situations like this, always look for any unusual properties when trying to identify the “trick or combo”.

* The definitions given in this site are what we essentially need to know for the purpose of explaining the information in this article. The Universal Pen Spinning Board contains precise and rigorous definitions for the terms below.The Troposphere recommends persons with interest in Pen Spinning refer to the UPSB definitions, and recognize the fact that any definitions of terms within this article are only approximates of the UPSB definitions.

**As a side note, there are arguments on whether Twisted Sonic should be categorized as a trick, or as a combo. More on this later). Since currently, there are no standard rules for knowing which adjective should be placed in front of which, so the only method for now is to remember by heart, unfortunately.