Pot wiring question

[Sensei Tim]

May be a stupid question...

So if you're using a pot as a variable resistor and not a voltage divider, why is the benefit of connecting one wire to lug 1 and the second wire to lugs 2 and 3 instead on lug 2 only and leaving lug 3 floating?

Is it to reduce the chance of noise, or something else?

[Ciaran Haslett]

As far as I'm aware is just done for redundancy.  So if, for whatever reason, your wiper fails, there's still a resistance between lug 1 and the lug 2 wire.