Grammar Moses: What kind of plumbing can a plumber plumb if a plumber is plum out of plumbum?

"What will happen to plumbers when the last lead pipe is removed?" I asked my wife the other day as we were on a drive.

She is as guilty as I of blurting out non sequiturs, which are really introductions to join our inner dialogues.

"What do you mean?" she responded.

I told her about the massive and costly effort to eradicate lead pipes from old municipal water systems and to remove lead-based paint on homes.

She stared longingly at the bridge supports that were coming up fast.

At that point, I don't think she knew I was proffering a grammar riddle rather than showing concern for the livelihood of people who keep our toilets and showers operating.

"I mean, if they can't work with lead anymore, we'll have to call them something else," I said.

Our surnames are often tied closely to our work. Back in the day, you might go to a guy named Fleischmann to buy your meat.

Why? Because "Fleisch" is German for "meat."

My dad's family ran a butcher shop in Milwaukee. It's a wonder my name isn't Fleischmann.

Because I knew that a "Baum" was a tree, I would romanticize as a child that Baumann meant "lumberjack" in German. Nope. A lumberjack is called a Hozlfaller (pardon my lack of umlaut).

But the consensus seems to be that "Baumann" was the name for someone who lived near a tree.

Well, that's not terribly aspirational.

Smiths got to shape iron with hammers and hot fires.

Fletchers made arrows.

Coopers made barrels.

I guess you're free to explore your worklife options when you live near a tree.

But plumbers are people who work with lead. And while there are gazillions of miles of lead pipes still delivering water to homes, plumbers have been precluded from using lead pipe or lead solder for nearly 40 years.

The Romans coined the name for those who used the heavy metal in fashioning water pipes. "Plumbum" is Latin for "lead." Some of that ancient plumbing exists today.

One of those artisans was called a "plumbarius." That was eventually was Anglicized to "plumber."

Those who work in stained glass still work in lead, so perhaps "plumber" would be a better name for them.

Come to think of it, maybe Baumann is the name for someone who uses a lot of trees in the manufacture of newspapers and poor-selling books.

Wordle famous

I assume many of you who read this column are everyday participants in the Wordle phenomenon. Do yourself a favor, though: Celebrate your score. Don't dig any deeper to compare your guesses to the WordleBot's because you'll be left feeling stupid, even if you solved it in three "guesses."

Sports Editor Kathleen Danes sent me an agenda for our weekly meeting, and in it she listed "Women's Wordle Cup." among the topics.

It seems predictive text (autocorrect) replaced "World" with "Wordle."

The bots clearly have taken over the world.

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is vice president/executive editor of the Daily Herald. You can buy Jim's book, "Grammar Moses: A humorous guide to grammar and usage," at

grammarmosesthebook.com. Write him at jbaumann@dailyherald.com

and put "Grammar Moses" in the subject line. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.