Talk:Plumbob

Plumb vs. Plum
Question: Why does everyone call it the plumbob when it is a Plumb-Bob. (notice spelling!) --75.118.1.96 16:09, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Possible answer: Because people are lazy and the hyphen is somewhat out of the way for a touch-typist, being on the number row. As such, plumb-bob morphs into plumbbob, which looks wrong and so is further morphed into plumbob. Another possible answer: When you see plumb-bob, you hear "plum bob" and so think of it as plumbob. People don't realize that a plumb-bob is actually a weight on a string, which may or may not look like the shape we've all come to know. Plumb in this case comes from the latin for lead, as plumb-bobs were simply lead weights.