Has our boy Elon gone plumb crazy?
● On Wednesday, South Africa-born Elon Musk walked into Twitter’s San Francisco head office carrying a large sink that had presumably been ripped out of a bathroom somewhere in the building.
Musk then posted a video of himself and the sink, captioned “Entering Twitter HQ. Let this sink in” to underline the conclusion of a months-long campaign of almost military proportions.
When his ownership of the social media behemoth was confirmed on Friday, Musk changed his profile description to “Chief Twit”.
Who knew that the Weirdo Rich Kid was fond of puns? Twitter’s South African chief wit Gus Silber, much more skilled in punsteration than is Musk, responded with this: “Elon Musk, his face flushed with glee, went to all the trouble of bringing a sink into Twitter’s HQ, just so he could tweet ‘let this sink in’. This is a sure sign that he will be basin his takeover strategy on plumbing new depths of punditry.”
Musk’s new stewardship of Twitter is still causing consternation. As CNN reported on Friday: “While he has certainly entered the company in erratic fashion, both employees and the public are still very much in the dark as to what he plans to do with it.”
Bloomberg reported that the porcelain appendage in Musk’s arms was a kitchen sink, but on closer examination it looks more like something one would use to wash one’s hands in while singing “happy birthday to me” twice over, as is recommended by hygienists.
No information exists as to which plumber was employed to purloin this pipeless basin for Musk, but there are probably plumbers aplenty in the US.
In South Africa, on the other tap, plumbers are in short supply, or at least reputable schools that train gifted youngsters who might become solid plumbers are few and far between.
Incidentally, those who practise a trade are the noble, respectable souls who make our cars go, our cupboards shut, our toilets flush and our houses not fall down around our ears.
No matter how many financial analysts try to change it, a light bulb won’t turn on unless a tradesman or woman has sorted out the electrics (assuming there is power at the time, of course). These heroes make spin cycles go round, and the world couldn’t function without them.
Words from the trades have become welded to everyday conversation. If you want to ratchet things up a notch, all you have to do is mention your worst vice, or plumb the depths of depravity.
The verb plumb comes from the 15th-century noun plumb, which in turn comes from Latin plumbum, meaning lead. A plumb was a piece of lead hung on a string to measure depth in a straight line. The literal meaning of plumbing is “lead-work”, because pipes used to be made of lead. Plumber comes from the Latin plumbarius, “lead-worker”. He ain’t heavy, he’s my plumber.
“To plumb” is to take soundings down a physical or metaphorical shaft. One may plumb the depths of dams or depravity, in other words get a feeling for what goes on down there.
Carpenters still use this device for measuring things. Some call it a plumb bob, which may be how Bob the Builder got his name. (Plumbago, incidentally, is not back pain experienced by plumbers after plumbing too many depths. It is a type of graphite, or a plant, the flowers of which are a popular element in wedding ceremonies in the Eastern Cape.)
Turned into an adjective, plumb means perpendicular, which is what a piece of string becomes when it has a lump of lead attached to it. From this it has come to mean “exactly” or “completely”, as in “plumb crazy”.
Which brings us back to Musk, whose sink stunt went down like a lead balloon. CNN’s commentary continued: “Twitter is often referred to as a social media website. But that downplays what it is. It’s much more. It’s one of the most influential communications platforms in the world, affecting all pockets of society — and at the moment, during this particularly pivotal time, there isn’t a steady hand at the helm.”
The same might be said of the state of trades-training in South Africa. Which is even more worrying than Musk and his new toy, if you ask me.