Editing String trimmer (section)

== History ==
The string trimmer was invented in the early 1970s by [[George Ballas]] of [[Houston]], [[Texas]],<ref name="Ballas WSJ">{{Cite news |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303763404576416121846117348 |title=George Ballas, Weed Eater's Inventor, Dies at 85 |last=Miller |first=Stephen |work=[[The Wall Street Journal]] |access-date=9 May 2017 |date=30 June 2011}}</ref> who conceived the idea while watching the revolving action of the cleaning brushes in an automatic car wash. His first trimmer was made by attaching pieces of heavy duty fishing line to a tin can bolted to an [[edger]]. Ballas developed this into what he called the "[[Weed Eater]]", since it chewed up the grass and weeds around trees.{{CN|date=October 2024}}

The word "strimmer" is correctly a [[trade name]] for a particular make of string trimmer, but it is often used as a generic for any string trimmer. From it has been [[Back-formation|backformed]] the colloquial verb "to [[wikt:strim|strim]]".{{CN|date=October 2024}}