"Tim Challenger" wrote in message
news:1104840072.98438ddeea2045e62f46ffa1c2f70c96@t eranews...
On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 11:47:10 -0000, BAC wrote:

Perhaps the fact most English speakers are not Japanese speakers and are
hence unlikely to be confused by possible quibbles regarding the literal
meaning of the term is one reason many of us consider 'tsunami' a more
apt
term than 'tidal wave'.

I'd have thought that as most English speakers speak English, they might
be
more likely to know what the work tidalwave means that tsunami.


The point is, a person who doesn't speak Japanese either knows what the term
tsunami means, or does not, so no confusion, whereas an English speaker who
does not know the accepted definition of 'tidal wave' might be tempted to
derive a definition intuitively, hence the possibility of confusion.