Not being an expert in my language and far less so in any other language, I am fascinated by multiple definitions of many words. Many times the different definitions share a focus, but other times you have to wonder what mental gymnastics occurred in order to bring about such a definition.
Topographic features have a multitude of names, sometimes with technical differences and other times with only regional usage differences. For example, terms for flowing water in English are many: river, stream, creek, branch, brook, tributary, estuary, course, rivulet, run, rill, and flow to name several. Many of these terms have specific definitions that differentiate them from the others. For instance, an estuary, which you might confuse for a bay, is actually a flooded riverbed. It gives evidence from the erosional pattern on its bed that the ocean was once shallower and the river flowed across the land there.
Other terms for flowing water are vaguer. Consider, what is the difference in a brook and a stream? A less used term, at least in my neck of the woods, is a run. It seems to be more commonly used for upscale subdivision names than actual watercourses. In my mind (opinion?) a run is a small stream that has more or less continuous flow.*
There is a run, Laurel Run, near where I live. I wonder who named it, or more specifically, where they were from that they used the word run rather than crick, a more popular slang in our parts.
The really amazing part of this musing is that the subject of this blog, a hike with a friend, was an excuse to go off on a language tangent about flowing water. Well, at least my mind is not stagnant. If you want to get to the pictures of our hike, click on “Laurel Run and Pretty Ridge.”
*That reminds me. Is a wash a dry watercourse or a stream that is frequently dry? One is a landform whereas the other is the flow across that landform.
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