# fresh water or soft water

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fresh-water-or-soft-water/653329>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 19, 2013, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fresh-water-or-soft-water/653329 "2013-03-19T03:46:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fresh-water-or-soft-water/653329/1 "2013-03-19T03:46:01Z")

</div>

Today’s tour group was a busload of Indian physicians, who mostly had good English skills. But one kept having a lot of trouble with my description of Lake Michigan as “fresh water.”

“Where does the water come from?” he wanted to know. Originally from melting glaciers at the end of the last ice age, and replenished by precipitation within the watershed, I explained. “Oh, that is soft water, not fresh water,” he kept saying.

Is this some distinction in British English that I should know?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fresh-water-or-soft-water/653329/2 "2013-03-19T06:52:05Z")

</div>

In Dutch fresh water is called “zoet”, sweet in English, maybe Hindi has something similar with “soft”.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fresh-water-or-soft-water/653329/3 "2013-03-19T07:07:55Z")

</div>

It sounds like the person who said it was conflating dissolved lime minerals with dissolved salt.

In British English (to my knowledge), soft water is water free of dissolved lime, fresh water is water that isn’t salty (but may be hard or soft)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fresh-water-or-soft-water/653329/4 "2013-03-19T07:54:51Z")

</div>

Strictly speaking, soft water is water with a low content in those cations which deposit as carbonates (the most common one is calcium, thus it is the one that gets mentioned in every ad for water softening products and machinery).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mack)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fresh-water-or-soft-water/653329/5 "2013-03-19T10:19:33Z")

</div>

Maybe his idea of ‘fresh’ water is limited to ground water.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fresh-water-or-soft-water/653329/6 "2013-03-19T10:41:44Z")

</div>

Don’t be silly. You can’t grind water.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fresh-water-or-soft-water/653329/7 "2013-03-19T12:31:33Z")

</div>

> [@Smeghead](#):
>
> Don’t be silly. You can’t grind water.

🆒  
And just how long have you been waiting for the opportunity to use that line?