Secret Lives of Words

Aplomb – Consequences of Gravity March 20, 2009

Aplomb, which means Poise or Confidence  has anything but a straightforward evolution. Looking backwards, it zigs and zags and gathers up all sorts of connotations and contexts before becoming a word downright upright! It’s related to Plumb or perpendicularity, which itself is due to the use of a Plumb Bob, sometimes also called a Plummet.  Brick layers, carpenters and other construction workers have historically used a plumb bob (actually any heavy item on a string) that could be set against any vertical surface to see if it was Plumb (or perpendicular). It’s a way to check if a vertical line is straight the same way a level checks to see that a horizontal line is flat.

This 'lead' is actually Graphite!

Plumb Bob was so called because it could swing and come to a steady straight drop down when checking the plumbness of a vertical surface, and because the original heavy weight was a conical piece of Lead, or Plumbum it’s classical name from Alchemy. Lead is one of seven metals known to alchemists, and as a heavy weight that drags one down is aptly represented by the same symbolas denotes the planet Saturn, the master of Duty and Destiny. The lead in pencils is not, of course, the element Lead but Graphite, an allotrope of Carbon. But, Lead was used in lead pencils in olden days, which was why it was called a lead pencil in the first place! Naturally, it’s the use of lead or plumbum in water pipes that gave us words such as plumbers and plumbing. Knowing the hazards of lead poisoning  and the use of plastic and copper, should we still call those men and women Plumbers?  Should we call them Pipists  or Hydro-Flo Technicians?

Tool Upright, Plunge Downright

So, here we have an ancient piece of a clever device, thousands of years of old, and undoubtedly universal in usage, known in European languages by the original coarse metal Lead, also well known to people of yore. The name of the base metal gives rise to the name of the device, the use of the device by masons gives rise to the implication of being upright and straight. Finally, this quality of being unwavering, ie a Plumb Bob that stands still and does not bob, gave rise to the human quality of  being unflappable, what we today call cool, or aplomb. Remember though, that we humans knew all of this long before we gave the word Gravity to the force that makes the plumb bob useful at all. That’s right, Plumb Bob was around before the apple fell on Sir Issac Newton. How is that for empirical knowledge! All this reminds me of what a man on a train told me once. There is an American expression, it seems prevalent in the South,  which goes somewhat like this:  That man is straight up as the Six O’clock Hour. I have not verified that such expression exists, if doesn’t, it should. If only since I can’t stand the digital clocks!  What do you think?”
An aside:  Operation Plumbbob was the code name of a series of nuclear tests in the Nevada desert:

Update: A recent headline in L.A. Times blared: Lead levels plummet in young children. It made me smile, and I hoped that the writer used the word plummet deliberately.