[momentarily interrupting the geoscientists’ tiny little pissing contest–take it to the Pit, fellas… :rolleyes: ]
New Madrid–no no no no no. We of the Midwest are as talented at denial as are (presumably) the residents of California, which even the toddlers out here know is going to fall off into the ocean one of these days when the Big One hits. But earthquakes in Illinois? No no no no no.
(Actually we do have little earthquakes every so often–their main effect is to drive every newspaper editor within a 100-mile radius stone-crazy, breaking out pundits and experts like there’s no tomorrow, which I suppose to their way of thinking, there may not be.)
And BTW, didja know it’s pronounced “MAY-drid”, not “Ma-DRID”?
I went to jr. high/ high school on the east (windward) side of Hawaii, and while we didn’t really have “drills” at school (“Everyone, uh. . . get to high land? Oh, we already are. . .”) they DID test out the sirens every first Monday afternoon of the month-- you could hear these pretty much anywhere within a few miles of the beach (as a new resident it was very confusing-- loud sirens and no one even blinking at it). I think most of this was in reaction to the Hilo tsunami, which really was a good one (you can still see the water stains on the walls of buildings far into downtown).
Umm, if you go up to your post above, you DO say that “A siesmic sea wave can’t be called a “tidal wave” becuase… has nothing to do with tidal forces…”. Also, i never said “tidal waves” have anything to do with the “tidal zone”, just that they occur in “tidal areas”- under the old definition of tidal=ocean.
The use of the term “tsunami” is not unacceptable to me- just the correction of those non-scientists who use the older & just as understandable term “tidal wave”- as if they thought tidal waves were caused by the tides.
But again- WHY “tsunami”? It is just as unprecise as “tidal wave”, and the only thing going for it is that it is in a foreign language.
According to the EB, you can call it a tsunami. Or you can call it a tidal wave. Tsunami is more correct than tidal wave, but both are valid terms.
Let’s find something more interesting to argue about. How about, “Is Al Gore a major weenie, or just a wiener wannabe?” Pick a GD thread and jump in, please don’t waste your not inconsiderable debating talents over here with me in the TIDAL WAVE :eek: thread.
I think it’s unacceptable because “tidal wave” is a common name for tsunami. It’s a synonym and if you’re not a geoscientist, you don’t give a damn which word you’re using as long as you’re communicating effectively . Laymen use layman’s terms. To expect anything else is silly. To demand anything else is futile. When I was in the Air Force, I did not correct my civilian friends who looked overhead and said “Look! An airplane!” by telling them “No, that was an F-16.” Where accuracy is not important, it is a damn nuisance.
Sorry to have hijacked your thread with this, DDG, and apologies to anyone else I’ve bored or annoyed. :rolleyes: The EB definition above makes it clear, IMHO, that people use a term that’s incorrect for the phenomenon being described. As somebody who wants to teach geology someday, it frustrates me just a little, Baloo, that you think I should give up trying to get folks to use the correct terminology. It can indeed be taught quite easily… how else would DDG, a Mid-westerner far from the coasts, know the right term?
::sighs::
Daniel, I would appreciate it if you would really read my posts instead of passing over them (which you must be, to be mis-quoting me consistently). But I do give up at this point. The term as defined in geology is quite precise; I (and the links I gave) can’t make that any clearer. Your sole complaint here really seems to be that the term tsunami is non-English in origin. So sorry, but that’s the way it is.
