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  #137   Report Post  
Old 06-01-2005, 03:42 AM
JeffC
 
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--
(remove the troll to reply)

Always look on the bright side of life (De do, de do, de doody doody do)


wrote in message
...
On Mon, 03 Jan 2005 21:35:32 +0000, Martin Brown
wrote:

Chris Hogg wrote:

On Mon, 03 Jan 2005 13:21:24 +0100,
wrote:

When did everybody start calling a tidal wave a tsunami and why?

Why not use the Japanese word for earthquake too?


AIUI, the term 'tidal wave' is strictly incorrect, as the wave has
nothing to do with tides, unlike some other waves such as the Severn
Bore. Tsunami is the 'correct' term (even though we all know what a
tidal wave is). It apparently means 'harbour wave', which sounds just
as inappropriate.


That is correct. "Tidal wave" in English gives entirely the wrong
impression. Just before a big tsunami strikes the sea drains away
rapidly from the shoreline for a short while. Anyone living in a tsunami
prone region should know that this means run for high ground.

Tsunami is basically correct.


In Japanese. The English term is "tidal wave".

They are an artefact of the deep water
shockwave running into ever more shallow coastal waters, harbour and
beach. Well out to sea in deep water the effect is much less.


The word used until ten years ago was tidal wave, everybody understood
what that meant.

Google and you will find

"Tsunamis. "Tsunami" is the Japanese word meaning tidal wave. ...
General information,
"Tsunami" is the Japanese word meaning tidal wave. ..."

The two words are interchangeable.


Japanese for earthquake is "jishin". By no means unpronouncable but the
English language version is not misleading and so remains in use.


I can't see any merit in using Japanese terms, when English terms
already exist.
--
Martin



I despair sometimes! a tidal wave is caused by the action of the tidal
calendar, which can be made worse by wind and storms, but what happened in
the south seas was NOT tidal, for heavens sake! and to describe them as such
would be wrong. If tsunami is not to your liking then call it a big wave,
freak wave or giant wave, don't call it a tidal wave! Our language develops
because of new words so accept it! The word "tsunami" describes the wave no
more that our word for the automobile, but most people say use the term
"car".


  #138   Report Post  
Old 06-01-2005, 04:32 AM
Registered User
 
First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Dec 2004
Posts: 65
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[quote=Nick Maclaren]In article ,
wrote:

but there wasn't a channel tunnel in 1974, or was there a secret one
we didn't know about?



*****

I have not read on here, so I'm probably repeating what has already been said:

There was a building attempt in 1974, but, as usual, we Brits got scared and pulled out after several miles had been dug, much to the dismay of the French.
__________________
Well use it to fertilise the Christmas trees then.
I have a feeling the market is going to peak sometime next January.
  #139   Report Post  
Old 06-01-2005, 04:47 AM
Registered User
 
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[quote=Kay]In article but I'm not sure where pork
comes from - the latin? - is it the modern french that has moved away?


I don't know either, but in German, it is Schwein, as in the similar English word Swine (except that the 'W' is pronounced like a 'V').
__________________
Well use it to fertilise the Christmas trees then.
I have a feeling the market is going to peak sometime next January.
  #140   Report Post  
Old 06-01-2005, 04:51 AM
Registered User
 
First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Dec 2004
Posts: 65
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[quote=Kay]In article ,
writes[color=blue][i]
Douglas, I don't know what you are posting with,
*****
A computer? ;-)
*****
but you must notice
that it's impossible to identify your part of the text when you reply
to posts?


I'm slow here to get the hang of things, but I usually show my reply by warking it with stars.

I tend to reply to bits of the message individually instead of saying it all at the end.

i'm sure I will improve eventually.
__________________
Well use it to fertilise the Christmas trees then.
I have a feeling the market is going to peak sometime next January.


  #141   Report Post  
Old 06-01-2005, 09:09 AM
Stuart
 
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It was in use long before anybody with or without a geology degree had
heard of the word tsunami in UK.


At primary school more than 20 years ago I was taught the difference between
a tsunami and a tidal wave. To say they're interchangeable smacks of dumbing
down to me.

Confusing the two is like calling a spider an insect or am astronomer an
astrologer. Ok, plenty people make the mistake, but that doesn't make it
right.

Regards,

Stuart


  #142   Report Post  
Old 06-01-2005, 10:07 AM
BAC
 
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"Stuart" wrote in message
...
A tidal wave is something completely
different to a tsunami, but a lot of people don't seem to realise this.


For the last time, it is not.

Get hold of a dictionary and look up the meaning.


Maybe its a common use of it, but its not correct, as those of us with
degrees in geology know. It may have become an alternative name for those
who don't know better, but the original meaning is quite different.


Interesting. What, then, would you say is the 'correct' meaning of 'tidal
wave', and why do you think that to be the 'original' meaning?

(All this, of course, is yet more evidence in favour of the proposition that
'tidal wave' is much more likely to be misunderstood than 'tsunami')


  #143   Report Post  
Old 06-01-2005, 10:53 AM
Nick Maclaren
 
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In article ,
Stuart wrote:
It was in use long before anybody with or without a geology degree had
heard of the word tsunami in UK.


At primary school more than 20 years ago I was taught the difference between
a tsunami and a tidal wave. To say they're interchangeable smacks of dumbing
down to me.


Assuming that English words have unique meanings, irrespective of
context, is the result of being exposed only to dumbed-down teaching.
Assuming that a self-selected cabal has the right to define the
meaning of words is either ignorance or arrogance.

You get a very good example of this in statistics. People with a
minimal exposure (e.g. "Statistics for geologists") often get on
their high horses about correlation being used for non-linear
association. More qualified and experiences statisticians don't.
We know that every field uses words differently, and that normal
English usage is not scientific usage.

Confusing the two is like calling a spider an insect or am astronomer an
astrologer. Ok, plenty people make the mistake, but that doesn't make it
right.


Insect (1589). An animal with its body divided into segments (from
animalia insecta).

Its original meaning and one of its two main standard meanings in
normal English includes essentially all of the arthropoda. Zoologists
use it to refer to the insecta alone (e.g. not including the
arachnida), but would have done better to follow the botanists and
stick with Latin for such precise use, to avoid ambiguity.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.
  #145   Report Post  
Old 06-01-2005, 12:55 PM
Duncan Heenan
 
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"BAC" wrote in message
...

"Stuart" wrote in message
...
A tidal wave is something completely
different to a tsunami, but a lot of people don't seem to realise this.

For the last time, it is not.

Get hold of a dictionary and look up the meaning.


Maybe its a common use of it, but its not correct, as those of us with
degrees in geology know. It may have become an alternative name for those
who don't know better, but the original meaning is quite different.


Interesting. What, then, would you say is the 'correct' meaning of 'tidal
wave', and why do you think that to be the 'original' meaning?

(All this, of course, is yet more evidence in favour of the proposition
that
'tidal wave' is much more likely to be misunderstood than 'tsunami')


The Severn Bore is a tidal wave.




  #146   Report Post  
Old 06-01-2005, 03:17 PM
BAC
 
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"Duncan Heenan" wrote in message
...

"BAC" wrote in message
...

"Stuart" wrote in message
...
A tidal wave is something completely
different to a tsunami, but a lot of people don't seem to realise

this.

For the last time, it is not.

Get hold of a dictionary and look up the meaning.

Maybe its a common use of it, but its not correct, as those of us with
degrees in geology know. It may have become an alternative name for

those
who don't know better, but the original meaning is quite different.


Interesting. What, then, would you say is the 'correct' meaning of

'tidal
wave', and why do you think that to be the 'original' meaning?

(All this, of course, is yet more evidence in favour of the proposition
that
'tidal wave' is much more likely to be misunderstood than 'tsunami')


The Severn Bore is a tidal wave.



Yes, I have heard it referred to as a 'tidal wave', or a surge wave, and, in
fact the Concise OED definition of a tidal bore refers to a 'tidal wave',
although the same dictionary's definition of 'tidal wave' doesn't refer to a
'tidal bore' but to an abnormally large ocean wave caused by an underwater
volcano or earthquake. So, 'tidal wave' can mean either tidal bore or
tsunami, depending on the context. Each meaning is 'correct'.

Hence I remain of opinion it is probably less confusing to refer to a
tsunami as a tsunami rather than a tidal wave, even though I have to
acknowledge that one of the accepted meanings of tidal wave is the same
thing as a tsunami.


  #147   Report Post  
Old 06-01-2005, 06:16 PM
Kay
 
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In article , Douglas Douglas.1i
writes[color=blue][i]

Kay Wrote:
In article
,
writes
Douglas, I don't know what you are posting with,
*****
A computer? ;-)
*****
but you must notice
that it's impossible to identify your part of the text when you reply
to posts?


I'm slow here to get the hang of things, but I usually show my reply by
warking it with stars.

I tend to reply to bits of the message individually instead of saying
it all at the end.

i'm sure I will improve eventually.


Hey! Not one single bit of what you quoted was written by me, despite
the attribution!

You're absolutely right to reply to each bit individually - that's the
convention in this newsgroup, and makes it a lot easier to follow the
argument than with the top posting convention generally used in business
emails.

If you were posting here directly instead of via garden banter, you
would be using a newsreader program. I use Turnpike (as do many others)
and when I hit 'reply' it automatically inserts '' before each line of
the text I am replying to (with more ''s for each successive previous
poster) - Therefore the number of ''s at the beginning of the line
tells you which person said what. This is a general newsgroup convention
and is what allows us to see who said what when we're all interleaving
replies.

In addition, when I read a post, Turnpike displays all text with a ''
in red and just the last author's contribution, with no '', in black.

So when your posts turn up with '' at the beginning of each line, they
are displayed in red. It's compounded by the fact your posts have the
same number of '' as the previous poster - so, as was said above, it is
totally impossible to identify your contribution ... or was, until you
explained your personal convention of using stars.

I don't know how gardenbanter works, but other people seem to have
managed to suss out how to get the ''s working - perhaps you could ask
in gardenbanter how they do it?
--
Kay
"Do not insult the crocodile until you have crossed the river"

  #150   Report Post  
Old 06-01-2005, 06:36 PM
griz
 
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Stuart wrote:

A tidal wave is something completely
different to a tsunami, but a lot of people don't seem to realise this.


For the last time, it is not.

Get hold of a dictionary and look up the meaning.


Maybe its a common use of it, but its not correct, as those of us with
degrees in geology know. It may have become an alternative name for those
who don't know better, but the original meaning is quite different.

Regards,

Stuart


Hi,
reading your reply, I was hoping you would actually explain what the
difference is ...

In my dictionary
tidal wave:
1. a nontechnical name for tsunami
2. an unusually large incoming wave, often caused by high winds and spring
tides

tsunami
a huge destructive wave, esp one caused by an earthquake. Also called:
tidal wave.

Does this mean that in the common use they are synonymous, but only tsunami
is really caused by earthquakes?

Regards

Griz
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