Talk:Misnomer/Archives/2009/September

Tidal Wave/Tsunami

Against my better judgment, I've put in a counterpoint to "tidal wave" being a misnomer. The approach taken is probably too provocative, but the point is valid:

The usage "tidal wave" predates "tsunami" and, up until the Boxing Day event, had been consistently used by people who clearly understood that the cause was not a gravitational gradient. For example -- and now I suppose I'll have to look these up again -- the BBC initially referred to the Boxing Day tidal wave as a tidal wave. There's also an account of a lighthouse in Alaska being swamped by a tidal wave in the 1940s. The officer on duty felt an earthquake, then experienced the tidal wave and clearly linked the two.

The key here is that tide originally referred to things happening, as in "good tidings" or "Christmas tide" (cf. German zeit, Dutch tijd, both meaning time). The tides of the sea were a specialized usage. For example, in the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses tide several times in the broader sense but only once to refer to the lunar tides. The first gravitational explanation of the lunar tides was given by Newton in the 17th century, but such usages as storm tide and red tide were accepted centuries later. One cannot argue that this was out of ignorance. Nor can one argue that insisting that tide be restricted to gravitational effects is somehow blessed by science. Atmospheric tides, for example, are caused by thermal expansion and contraction.

In a case like algal bloom one can argue that the more formal term is more accurate and descriptive of the underlying causes. But in a case like storm surge for storm tide the difference is purely stylistic, and in the case of tsunami for tidal wave, downright capricious. Surely earthquake surge would be "more correct" than either? -Dmh (talk) 03:36, 9 September 2009 (UTC)