Joe the Plumber

I join to this plumbiferous post, an other post of Roger Cohen on NYTimes.com :

"Before Joe the Plumber, the latest celebrity of the U.S. presidential campaign, we had the Polish plumber, star of the 2005 French referendum that sent a much-heralded European Union constitution into the toilet.

[...]

In time, sociology departments at the Sorbonne and Stanford will complete studies on this Gallo-American plumbing thing. Meanwhile, it’s clearly time for everyone to start searching for his inner plumber."

Once again, you can't imagine how words are French. We say "plombier" in France, this kind of artisan who puts lead pipes all around your house. As you know, the competition between German-Saxon and French-Roman words is terrifying. You have to make a choice, lead or plumb, to end or finish, to start or commence, German or French, hardness or delicacy.
Plumb, finish, commence, these words are so sweet, so French...

Plumber comes from plumb, wich comes from "plomb" in French. We have an unique word for lead and plumb, that is "plomb". Plomb is a dangerous but famous metal. They have burried kilometers of lead tubes in the big royal garden of Versailles to build an infernal machinery of fountains. Louis XVI was a famous clock-maker but he was not a good leader.

These craftmen who put plomb pipes everywhere was named "plombiers", or royal plumbers.

We have this dimension in French : a lead-er can't be a plumb-er, the 2005 French referendum became a 'no', the European Union constitution had got a leak!