Originally, someone who worked with lead, especially making and repairing lead pipes. Ancient Rome's reliance on lead pipes, and all that lead in its drinking water, is offered as one reason for its eventual decline and delirium.
“Thanksgiving Day. Let all give humble, hearty, and sincere thanks now, but the turkeys. In the island of Fiji they do not use turkeys; they use plumbers. It does not become you and me to sneer at Fiji. – Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar.”
Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894).
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