Why pencil 'lead' is actually carbon and not metal
In short: This video explores the historical confusion between graphite and lead, explaining why we still use the wrong name for the core of our pencils today.
The term 'lead' for pencils stems from a 16th-century discovery in Borrowdale, England, where a large deposit of pure, solid graphite was found. Because metallurgists at the time mistook this high-quality carbon for a type of black lead, they named it 'plumbago'—a term derived from the Latin 'plumbum', meaning lead.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Why You Used to Have to Use Number 2 Pencils on Scantrons (and Why Pencil "Lead" is Called Lead)
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