by Vanessa Good (WPCAMR Intern) and Jeffrey Gerard (OSM/VISTA)
Brooks and branches, creeks and cricks: We use a plethora of terms to affectionately talk about the flowing water in our communities. But just what are we referring to?
In talking about watersheds, certain words have very precise meanings; for example, a tributary (also called a branch, a fork, or a prong) does not meet the sea, but always flows into another stream, river, or bay.
But other words that describe flowing water can be more ambiguous, often having only imprecise connotations; sometimes the dictionary notes these distinctions in usage. A channel, according to Merriam-Webster, is the narrow, deeper part of a riverbed where the water flows fastest. A strait is a channel that connects two large bodies of water. Waterways are usually (but not necessarily) navigable by boats. Brooks conjure images of being fed by bubbling springs. And a river is larger than a stream, which may in turn be larger than a creek—but exactly where the divisions are, no one can say. (The world’s shortest river, the D River in Oregon, is only 120 feet long.)
Some word choices are set apart not by nuances in meaning, but by their origins in regional dialect and history. Eastern Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey, with their heavy Dutch influence, have kills (e.g. Schuylkill, Bushkill), from the Dutch word kil meaning “river bed, channel.” A swath of the United States that stretches from about Pittsburgh to Virginia’s southern border—and west towards Kansas City—often uses the word run to name streams (e.g. Glade Run in Fayette County). Or across ‘the pond,’ you might find a beck, bourne, brook, or burn in the United Kingdom; only Southern England uses the word stream.
Perhaps the most interesting distinction is the pronunciation of creek versus crick. Rather than following geographical boundaries, the word creek is used widely by city folk throughout the nation, whereas crick is the pronunciation of choice in rural areas—though many people, city or country, alternate between both.
Humor writer Patrick McManus describes where to draw the line between a creek and a crick in his essay “How to Fish a Crick”:
“A creek has none of the raucous, vulgar, freewheeling character of a crick. … Creeks tend to be pristine. They meander regally through high mountain meadows, cascade down dainty waterfalls, pause in placid pools, ripple over beds of gleaming gravel and polished rock. … Cricks, on the other hand, shuffle through cow pastures, slog through beaver dams, gurgle through culverts, ooze through barnyards, sprawl under sagging bridges, and when not otherwise occupied, thrash fitfully on their beds of quicksand and clay.”
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