Pencil "plumbago" (Latin for "lead ore"). Because the pencil core is still referred to as "lead", or a "lead", many people have the misconception that the graphite in the pencil is lead, and the black core of pencils is still referred to as "lead", even though it never contained the element lead. The words for pencil in German ("bleistift"), Irish ("peann luaidhe"), Arabic (قلم رصاص "qalam raṣāṣ"), and some other languages literally mean "lead pen". The value of graphite would soon be realised to be enormous, mainly because it could be used to line the moulds for cannonballs; the mines were
Lead single Lead single A lead single is usually the first single to be released from a studio album, by a musician or a band, before the album itself is released. During the era of the phonograph record, all music arrived in the marketplace as what is now termed a single, one potential hit song backed by an additional song of generally less commercial appeal on a single ten-inch 78 rpm shellac record. After the launch of the long-playing microgroove record in 1948 and the arrival of the 45 rpm single the following year, singles continued to appear separately from albums into