Pencil lead

Should people be saying there's lead in their pencil when it's not really lead that's in pencils.

Yeah. We should say that. It is carbon that is in a pencil. But when we call it lead we do not mean lead that is the metal. It is a completely different word that is spelt exactly the same. It has nothing to do with metal. An iron that is used to iron clothes isn't made out of iron.

I once read a science book that said that the lead in your pencil is not lead at all. It was talking about chemistry.

I thought pencils used to have lead, but we switched to graphite because it is safer. It's like people calling aluminum foil, "tin foil."

Well, I think teachers should call it ''graphite'' when their talking about to their students because not doing so can make the students think it's actually real lead like many students actually do believe.

I call it ''aluminum foil''.

Pencils have graphite in them, not lead.

Pencils have graphite in them, not lead.

Who duplicated my post?

Yes, it is okay to say that a pencil has lead in it and to call it a lead pencil.

I still use the term "grey-lead" for pencil, which is what we called them in primary school.
eg. "do you have a grey-lead I can borrow?"

Similarly, I use the term "biro" for pen.