Talk:Body of water

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A canal is not a natural pool of water, is it? Expert opinions on this, please ;) 143.93.63.222 19:34, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What's the definition of a body of water?

Here's what the article currently says in the intro:

A body of water is any significant accumulation of water such as an ocean, a lake, or a river, usually covering the Earth or another planet. Some bodies of water can be man-made, or artificial, such as a pond, lake or harbor, but most are naturally occurring geographical features. Bodies of water that are navigable are known as waterways. The term 'body of water' can also refer to a reservoir of water held by a plant, technically known as a phytotelma. In common usage, the term 'body of water' is usually used to refer only to a large accumulations of water, such as oceans, seas and lakes. It is less commonly used to refer to smaller pools of water such as ponds, puddles or wetlands. Rivers, streams, canals and other geographical features where water moves from one place to another are not always considered bodies of water, but are included here as geographical formations featuring water.

I just added the last three sentences because, I was mulling over this and in my mind as a native English speaker, a body of water is generally only a "big" body of water. Smaller things such as ponds & puddles wouldn't really be bodies of water. Also, I'm not sure if rivers, streams and other "moving" water would be considered a body of water. What do you all think? Maybe this article should be renamed/forwarded to something like "Geographical formations featuring water" but then it wouldn't take into account man-made ponds, canals, harbors etc.

Anyway, that's just my rambling for ya. LinguistAtLarge 00:03, 24 February 2007 (UTC)