Why does plumber have a silent b?

Answer 1

I think the root of the word plumber is the same as the root of the french for the metal lead, "plomb" (which is also pronounced with a silent b) from Latin "plumbum where the b is pronounced!

In the 1500's the first dictionary over the English language was published and unfortunately the author (i believe by the name of Anderson) used the Latin alphabet instead of the Celtic to attempt to recreate in writing the pronunciation of words. Unfortunatly because Latin was a language that had few phonemes (sound bites) and English many phonemes. You see it is difficult to write a word in a language that uses many more types of sounds than in the language you are using to write with. It is a little like trying to paint a rain bow when you only have 3 colors in your paint box white, black, and red.

Anderson tried his best to duplicate the intricacies of the English language and so had to use a lot of letters that really are not or almost not pronounced.