The feds have announced that Washington's "inland marine waterways" will henceforth be known as the "Salish Sea." Huh? What's that again? ("Salish" refers to a group of American Indian --"Native American" -- peoples and languages found along the coastal areas of Washington, Oregon and British Columbia.)
Well, I've lived around these here parts virtually all of my life, and I've never heard anyone mention a Salish Sea. It's apparently to be a generic name for waters now known as Puget Sound, the Georgia Strait, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and connected waterways. We are assured that the present names will continue in use, describing specific portions of the newly hatched Salish Sea. Until today, Northwesterners have usually called the entire body of water "Puget Sound," although geographers who keep track of such things assure us that this term applies properly only to the inlet south of Whidbey Island.
Well, cool. I haven't been so excited since they renamed the Gulf of California the "Sea of Cortez." And of course life's been better for us all since Bombay became Mumbai, Madras became Chennai, Constantinople became Istanbul, and St. Petersburg became Leningrad. Oh, wait -- it's St. Petersburg again, right? -- it all happens so fast, I can't keep track. And whatever happened to the Pillars of Hercules?
Just don't even get me started on what happened to the Stanford "Indians" ... Bah, humbug!
Friday, November 13, 2009
Sailing the Salish Sea
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2 comments:
Apparently the Federal government failed high school geography. That's not a sea!
Really? How is "sea" defined? Checking the dictionary, I see:
1. the salt waters that cover the greater part of the earth's surface.
2. a division of these waters, of considerable extent, more or less definitely marked off by land boundaries: the North Sea.
3. one of the seven seas; ocean.
That sounds pretty vague. The Black Sea is pretty much like a salt water lake, but the North Sea is just an area of the ocean.
The "Salish Sea" is salt, an inlet of the ocean, and is more or less marked off with land boundaries. But it's so long and skinny and fjord-like, I agree it doesn't look like what I'd usually call a "sea." Did you learn a more precise definition of "sea" that would exclude it?
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