There are about 180,000 named stream-like bodies of water in the U.S.
Across most of the country, the default term is “creek,” (pronounced “crick” over most of the South and Appalachia) but there are regionalisms which reflect different bands of immigrant settlement and linguistic isolation.
In New England, for example, the preferred term is “brook,” while in Pennsylvania and Northern Virginia, we generally talk of a “run,” while in parts of Kentucky it might be called a “lick”.
In the South and much of the Midwest, the preferred term is “branch,” but in the desert Southwest, the larger waters may be called “rios,” while the dry beds of very seasonal streams are often called “arroyos” or “washes.”
In parts of New York a mapped stream may be called a “kill” — an archaic Dutch term.
Oddly, while much of the eastern U.S. was initially settled by immigrants from England and Scotland, you rarely hear the term “burn” — a Scottish and northern English term for a small river, brook, or large stream.
No comments:
Post a Comment
All comments are moderated, and all zombies, trolls, time wasters, and anonymous cowards will be shot.
If you do not know what that means, click here and read the whole thing.
If you are commenting on a post, be sure to actually read the post.
New information, corrections, and well-researched arguments are always appreciated.
- The Management