The kids were watching a nature show on TV this morning and they were touring a ranch in Montana. The Ranch owner was showing them the great streams that they had for fishing, and the owner mentioned that his 5-Acre "lake" was also a pretty good place to fish. Which launched me into my "That's not a "lake" that's a POND!!!!!! Can you tell I'm passionate about this? Let me explain...
Growing up on a farm we had many Ponds on our property. They where not big or grand, but they were useful and got the job done when it came to providing the livestock with water. When I was little, the Lake was the place we would head to every Summer to go water skiing and camp out with my Mom's family for a weekend.
I started noticing after I married my husband, that he called anything bigger than a mud-puddle a lake. A Lake? Where did that come from? He was raised in the country just like I was. So I really didn't know where he was coming from calling little body's of water a lake? This little difference has caused us many sleepless night's wondering what to do.( I'm KIDDING! Lighten UP!)
Being the profound seeker of knowledge that I am, I headed straight for "Google" hoping It would reward me with telling me what I wanted to hear... This Is what I found...
From answer.com says "Though not generally accepted,some regions of the US define a pond as a body of water with a surface area of less than 10 acres".
I liked this, but I was surprised that ten Acres is considered a LAKE? I don't think a boat could get up enough speed to water ski on a 10 Acre "LAKE"(could it?) Consider this though...
This is the United States Government definition on the topic.
"There are no official definitions for generic terms as applied to geographic names. Every organization will have a definition that is application driven, and no one office definition is accepted as official. The difference is thematic and beyond that it is highly perceptive. The difference between lake and pond is an example. We, at the USGS Geographic Names Office, in developing the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) database, have devised 63 broad categories of feature types with definitions solely to facilitate retrieval of entries with similar characteristics. So, we define lake as “natural body of inland water,” and not necessarily applicable to another’s needs. We have found 54 different generic terms that have characteristics similar to our definition of lake, but all are classified as lake. The only area of general agreement is that perceptibly, a pond is smaller than a lake, but even this is not always true".
OK, this is just further proof of where our Country is headed! If the Government can't even make up their mind's on what a "POND" is.... I mean COME ON!! A "LAKE" can be smaller than "POND"????? CLEARLY I SHOULD RUN FOR PRESIDENT!
I will continue to debate the subject until I die...
So to close, can we all just at least agree that a mud-puddle is most definitely NOT a lake?
7 comments:
And don't get me started on the "Supper Vs. Dinner" debate! LOL
Hahaha! No kidding! I will leave that one up for you to blog about!!
Amen!!!! You, my dear are very eloquent-and not a little feisty. And by the way. It HAS to be bigger than 10 acres to even begin to qualify as a lake. *grin*
Oh good! Im NOT the only who feels this way!! I think around 20-30 acres is when it can "start" to be called a lake! :)
So I have lived on a farm my entire life with a couple bodies of water that my family consistently called the "ponds." Years back, one of my friends who was better with all the technical stuff was over and I said lets head to the pond. He very quickly reacted to this and corrected me that this could be considered a lake. From that point on I've always questioned it, until now. Apparently, a pond is any body of water that can sustain plant life throughout the entire bottom because sunlight is able to reach it. A lake on the other hand does not have plant life throughout its entirety because of the lack of sunlight (I guess due to depth). I suppose thats how a pond can be larger than a lake and still be considered a pond. Best of luck to you.
Anonymous- Thanks for the information. I really appreciate It. that makes alot of sense!
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