"Flippers, goggles, oxygen tank" -- cringeworthy, or useful??

[kayakguy]

My mother and I got certified together when I was 14 back in 1991. I realize now of course that it was for me.

Maybe 8 years ago we went to Florida and my mother came along. She had never really taken up diving like my wife and I eventually did but she did some warm ups and we went to the keys for some very easy and shallow dives.

Now I had been an adult and on my own for several decades but my mother still taught me a lesson that day.

As we were getting ready to depart on the boat she asked me to hand her a flipper. Being the "experienced and serious" diver I was I immediately corrected my mother. "Moooom, it's fin..."

Without missing a beat she replied "I don't care" in the most nonchalant and uncaring manner I could imagine.

I realized immediately she was there to have fun and something so insignificant as a piece of recreational dive gear's name just wasn't important. She was right.

Every time I get too big for my britches or start feeling high and mighty superior to someone less experienced or not as dedicated to a pursuit I remember that lesson.

I wonder how much fun I have missed worrying about being technically correct?

My mother is still with us and we go on many adventures together often in foreign lands. I have never told her of the lesson she taught me that day but whenever we are somewhere and she is acting silly or maybe a little...embarrassing, I remember that it simply doesn't matter. We pass through this life once. Don't waste the journey worrying about truly insignificant ********.

 

[Saboteur]

@nolatom - I totally get you!! But sometimes I think I'm just looking for somewhere to direct my irritation!! I'm also known to get worked up over lose/loose, choose/chose, their, there, they're, and other such errors (until I make them ... at which time I crawl into the nearest corner!).

I suppose one might argue the importance of getting the science of oxygen versus air or other gases correct. But as long as they're saying cool things about divers I'm ok with it (or at least I'm trying!!).

.....and is it scuba gear or scuba gears....the latter drives me nuts, whether it is right or wrong

 

[txgoose]

Me too I do it in sailing as well when I call everything rope.

Same!!! A gentleman has been _trying_ to mentor me some. I disappoint him all the time.

 

[D_Fresh]

Me too I do it in sailing as well when I call everything rope.

No, no, no!

This one actually bothers me more than Goggles, Flippers, Oxygen tank...

A rope is a rope only when on land... once on, or in, the water it is a line

 

[rongoodman]

.....and is it scuba gear or scuba gears....the latter drives me nuts, whether it is right or wrong

The same for "maths". Are they British usages, or do they come from someplace else?

 

[Sam Miller III]

What about the term SCUBA ? as in SCUBA Diving ?

It has only been in common usage for only a very short time

SDM

 

[David Wilson]

The same for "maths". Are they British usages, or do they come from someplace else?

The abbreviation "Maths" is British usage. As for "gear", we Brits say "scuba gear", never "scuba gears".

 

[Neilwood]

.....and is it scuba gear or scuba gears....the latter drives me nuts, whether it is right or wrong

If using English properly, when something is uncountable such as a collective term for a group of items such as equipment, it is referred to as singular. By that token, it should be SCUBA gear (as the collection of equipment is uncountable and therefore singular). Gears should only be used where there are multiple items of that particular type such as automotive gears - there are gears in a gearbox (the individual gear cogs are countable but together it becomes a gearbox and not gearsbox.

The same for "maths". Are they British usages, or do they come from someplace else?

The usage of maths derives from the overall topic of mathematics which is a plural noun and as such has the "s" on the end. By shortening it, we do not change the status of it as a plural noun and therefore, at least on this side of the pond, it makes sense to retain the s.

Scuba is an unusual one as it it started as an acronym but has now entered language as a word in its own right

 

[mbs]

No, no, no!

This one actually bothers me more than Goggles, Flippers, Oxygen tank...

A rope is a rope only when on land... once on, or in, the water it is a line

Its a line huh? Except when its not... It could be a sheet, a halyard oh and yea rode

 

[Akimbo]

I wonder how "gear" became dominant in the US for "diving equipment"? Same question for "kit" in the UK. The common denominator is a single syllable word that was hijacked from the language long before SCUBA was developed.

The traditional British term for the collection of equipment worn by surface supplied heavy gear divers was "dress" or "diving dress". See: What do you call this gear?