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 Pedants in Canada and other places may say tidal stream, but as Bowditch,
NOS, and NOAA all accept and use the term "tidal current" within the US, and
I'm a Damned Colonial in the US, the correct pedantic term *here* is "tidal
current".

Remember, the value in a name is to identify the person using it--not simply
the object being named. Torch, fag, tube, valve, underground...Why
shouldn't our natuical terms reflect their user, too?

<> Using the correct technical term
is useful only among technicians. Here, you will hear boaters, fishermen,
and even Coasties (USCG) use both terms interchangeably. Lacking the
Academie Francaise, we Colonists actually do determine propriety by common
usage. Give the dictionaries a decade or two, and the common usage becomes
the definition they move up to number one.

I don't mind the rest of the world seeing things in different terms, after
all, US and Canadian bouyage and navigation marks are "backwards" versus the
rest of the world. Yet somehow they continue to suffice for their
purposes.

   

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