Pretty much said it all in the title. My question comes from today’s Washington Post, whose coverage of the Minnesota school shooting tragedy begins (second graf):
Huh? If it’s not “inland,” it’s called…the ocean. Or so I thought.
Lake of fire?
Why, a coastal lake, of course!
Perhaps the term distinguishes river-fed and river-drained lakes from lakes which are not?
A coastal lake or an island lake perhaps?
I’d guess that in this instance it might be meant to distinguish this lake from Lake Superior.
Notice the state where the event took place? Minnesota, along with Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, all of Michigan, Ohio, New York, and Ontario have access to a handful of freshwater seas, Lakes that are removed from those larger bodies of water are frequently identified as “inland lakes.” It is probably just a regional expression, but it distinguishes the smaller lakes from the Great Lakes.
Veronica Lake?
Nah, more Ricki Lake - in her Hairspray days, when she was pretty big.
As for the serious answers - I suppose I get the distinction, but it strikes me as a distinction without a difference for anyone but hydrologists - I mean, Lake Superior is still inland. It’s in quite a lot of land, but it’s inland. And a coastal lake is still inland, otherwise it’d be a bay or an estuary or an inlet or some damn other thing.
And trust me, ain’t no WaPo reporter who’s got that kind of scientific literacy, nohow.
However, a Post re-write man pulling stuff off of AP or Reuters which originated from a local source in Minnesota just might keep a regionalism if it kept the text moving.
Let me make sure I understand this properly:
Lake Pontchartrain: estuary?
Lake Charles: coastal lake?
Lake Ronkonkoma: apparently part of a group known as kettle lakes , but could it still qualify as a coastal lake, considering its proximity to the sea? Or must there necessarily be an outlet?
Slight hijack, but I once heard that all lakes in Ohio (other than Lake Erie) are manmade. Being a lifelong Ohioan, I would assume this is true, for the most part.
Even though the term is awkward, I can understand the sentiment.
Growing up on the Great Lakes, it was apparant to me even as a small child that using the same word to describe Lake Superior and the inland lakes was wrong. They’re just not the same. Imagine if you lived by the ocean and both the ocean and the lakes around it were called “oceans.” It never makes sense. I wish someone would coin a new term, but until they do, “inland lakes” it is.
Ohio actually has a bunch of kettle lakes, which are glacial formations. To further stir up trouble, kettle lakes are usually inland lakes, too. I don’t know where St. Paris is, but if you get into the glaciated parts of the state (and MN, WI, MI, etc.) most of the lakes are glacial reminants.
My theory on ‘inland’ is that you can’t connect it to large bodies of water through navigable waterways but in practice it seems like a rather nebulous term.
An Outland lake. They’re filled with grape soda, and you can walk on them, but only if you’re a penguin.
And not just that. The Great Lakes are so big, that when you are in the vicinity of one, you assume that any reference to “lake” means the Great Lake. A newspaper report that said “lakeside” or “shore” or other aquatic adjective would mislead a local if they really meant one of the puddles.
The best analogy I can think of would be standing on Long Island and referring to “the city” when you meant Newark.
Not sure about OH, but all WV lakes are manmade.
From Michigan. The Great Lakes are freshwater seas. Equating them with “inland lakes” (a perfectly acceptable, normal phrase for us) is just fundamentally wrong.
I’m not a geologist (or whoever studies these things), and I’ve not read with great detail all of the other links, but here’s my Michigan understanding of different inland lakes:
[ul]
[li]Spring fed, lake just starts out from underground springs.[/li][li]Man-made, dammed rivers.[/li][li]Low-areas fed by rivers/streams, where water accumulates. Low-areas can be formed by a whole lot of reasons. Strictly speaking, the Great Lakes are this type (glacially-formed low areas fed by rivers).[/li][/ul]
In virtually all of these instances, though, they’re characterized by slow moving water in small quantities. The water gets pee-warm and sometimes looks pee-yellow or -greenish (not, not “pea”). There’s a lot of seaweed (no, we don’t call it lakeweed) sometimes. They’re not navigable by freighters (big boats that haul freight). In fact, this describes Lake St. Clair to a tee, and the only reason I won’t call it an “inland lake” is because it’s connected to the St. Lawrence system and is, in fact, navigable (but I think requires constant dredging – unsure).
I think I wouldn’t call Lakes Mead, Tahoe, and Powell inland lakes, even though by my definition they “are.” They’re big enough, clear enough, and different enough that they’re not what I picture in my mind when I think of mucky, little inland lakes. Hey, in fact, let me clarify my definition now: inland lakes are those mucky little things that are glorifed ponds.
Yea, I believe you are correct. In fact, I believe Silver Lake in New Carlisle, OH is one such lake.
Oh, in case it’s not obvious, for those that live on/near the water “inland” kind of implies that it’s not coastal. If it’s not big enough to have coast, then it’s an inland lake.
So now I wonder about those that live near puny little lakes like Champlain or Mead – do you refer to the coastline? I wouldn’t think so, but I don’t know. Whereas in Michigan, we sure do refer to the coast of the Great Lakes.