Date:    Mon, 2 Mar 1998 12:44:42 -0500
<br>From:    Gregory {Greg} Downing  downingg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IS2.NYU.EDU 
<br>Subject: Re: Semantic distinc. betw. "crick" and "creek"?
<br>
<br>At 11:32 AM 3/2/98 -0500, you wrote:
<br> A correspondent wrote in about an alleged semantic distinction
<br> between "crick" and "creek." This writer, who is from an unspecified
<br> but "rural" part of the country, claims that he uses both pronunciations,
<br> but that a "crick" was smaller than a "creek." He states that he has
<br> had a long-running disagreement with his wife about this, and he recently
<br> found someone else who makes this distinction. DARE doesn't show any
<br> semantic distinction, and Joan Hall isn't otherwise aware of any.
<br> 
<br> Is this distinction familiar to anyone on the list?
<br> 
<br> Jesse Sheidlower
<br> Random House Reference
<br>  jester[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]panix.com 
<br> 
<br>
<br>I haven't ever heard such a distinction made in rural places where I've
<br>spent time, which in itself means nothing. But prima facie I would wonder if
<br>this distinction reflects well-established usage. Where there are two words
<br>that obviously seem phonetically and/or semantically related, individuals
<br>often try to rationalize the existence of both by positing improvised
<br>distinctions. Since "crick" is seen as more uneducated or rural than
<br>"creek," it would not be surprising that someone would decide that a "crick"
<br>must be a smaller, more local, more rural stream than a creek. I.e., a
<br>"possible folk-semantics" yellow-light is probably in order -- which, given
<br>the skeptical but open-minded tone of the query, has already clicked on in
<br>JS's mind.
<br>
<br>Over the years, when the subject of religion comes up in some connection,
<br>students in my classes seem to make very decided distinctions between
<br>"religious" and "spiritual." But each of them seems to have made up a
<br>somewhat different version of the distinction....
<br>
<br>Maybe that guy's wife is right. And perhaps not for the first time! I bet
<br>they also disagree about how to use the stick and clutch in a manual-tran
<br>car....
<br>
<br>But then again, given people's propensity for "rationalizing," maybe a
<br>crick/creek "distinction" has been independently created by more than one
<br>speaker....
<br>
<br>FWIW, aside from DARE which is mentioned above, OED2 creek n.1 mentions
<br>"creek" and "crick" as simply locally varying pronunciations, citing a
<br>somewhat similar variation between peak and pike n.2, the latter as UK
<br>"northern." I.e., the creek/crick sound and spelling variation maybe go back
<br>to a point long before any (in this case, 20th-cent.) evidence for a
<br>semantic distinction.
<br>
<br>But, maybe there's more evidence out there....
<br>
<br>Greg Downing/NYU, at greg.downing[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nyu.edu or downingg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]is2.nyu.edu
<br>