Paul Dulaney on using the wrong term: “I’m not hands-on when it comes to plumbing and this week I called a plumber to replace the pressure regulator valve at the front of my house. I told him that I would also like him to replace the faucet that the garden hose is connected to. Apparently ‘faucet’ is the wrong word; it’s called a ‘hose bib.’”
I just discovered this myself when I
replaced my hose bib a few months ago. I’ve always called it a spigot or outdoor faucet. While these terms are often used interchangeably, the most industry-accepted terms are hose bib (or hose bibb or hose bibb) and sillcock. The main difference between an indoor faucet and a hose bib is that a bib is made to withstand the elements. The term sillcock refers to the fact that it’s usually located on the sill board above the house’s foundation.
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In response to my piece on
dirty work hands, reader
KokoTheTalkingApe responded: “When I studied printmaking, I was constantly getting block ink on my hands, and that stuff is powerful. Even a tiny bit will stain your hands, plus all the switches and handles and doors and equipment you touch, plus your clothes, your face, plus all the stuff that your clothes touch, etc. It just never stops.
"But I had a woman in our class who was a semi-pro lithographer, making prints that sold for hundreds or thousands of dollars. She was taking the class just to broaden herself a little. Her hands were always perfectly clean. She didn’t wash her hands all the time, she just was mindful of how and where she put ink. I would walk out of the class looking like a coal miner, and she looked like she’d just come from the mall. She was skilled, that’s all there was to it.”
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