3 ms·

I would have agreed with you before they pointed out that "frozen water" gets a word: ice. Honestly, I think it's reasonable: people deal with frozen water far

by gcanyon 8mo ago

I would have agreed with you before they pointed out that "frozen water" gets a word: ice. Honestly, I think it's reasonable: people deal with frozen water far more than they do boiling water, but it changes it from a case of "what are they talking about?" to "okay, where do we draw the line?" for me.

NiloCK 8mo ago
Steam?
dghf 8mo ago
But water that has boiled into gas also gets a word: steam. As far as I'm aware, there is no separate word for freezing water -- i.e. water that is very cold and will, if it continues to get colder (and has something to crystallise around), turn into ice. So the symmetry seems complete: ice -> freezing water -> water -> boiling water -> steam.
- epolanski 8mo ago
  Freezing water is already at or below 0, it doesn't need to get "colder" to turn into ice, it simply needs to exchange the energy with the environment and rearrange in crystals. Basically as it gets colder water exchanges energy with the environment and gets colder. But once it reaches freezing temperature, it can no longer get colder and all the energy is used for the formation of crystals.
  - Someone 8mo ago
    > Basically as it gets colder water exchanges energy with the environment and gets colder. > But once it reaches freezing temperature, it can no longer get colder and all the energy is used for the formation of crystals Water at freezing temperature can get much colder without freezing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercooling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercooling: “Water normally freezes at 273.15 K (0.0 °C; 32 °F), but it can be "supercooled" at standard pressure down to its crystal homogeneous nucleation at almost 224.8 K (−48.3 °C; −55.0 °F).”
  - 306bobby 8mo ago
    Yes, is that not the same with boiling water? It doesn't need to get "hotter" to turn to steam, it needs to exchange the energy with the environment to gasify
  - dghf 8mo ago
    So, I got the physics wrong. Apologies and thanks for the correction. But the semantic point still stands. Boiling water is still water -- in the specific sense of H2O in its liquid state -- while ice is not. The complaint that frozen water has a single-word synonym while boiling water does not is making a false equivalence.
uhhhhhhh 8mo ago
Well, being pedantic, my favorite hobby: Frozen water represents a state change and that different state commonly gets its own word: ice/water/steam equates to solid/liquid/gas Boiling/freezing water represents the state of the liquid, not the transition. Its descriptive. Water boils away into steam, or freezes into ice. Should we consider luke-warm water also singular? What about body-temperature water? cool water? It makes sense not to treat adjectives/descriptive words combined with the subject as singular because the definition already exists in the root of the words (meaning of adjective word + meaning of subject word). Blue clay is another example, why would that be a singular? It really only makes sense to me in the rare cases where the combination words represent something different or non obvious than the combined meanings of the two words (i.e to 'give up')
Izkata 8mo ago
Ice, slush, sleet, snow, graupel, hail... And within there is a subtype "black ice", a compound noun that isn't really just a description (it's not black, it's nearly invisible - a similar sense as another one, "black hole", which you'd never figure out from the components alone). We have a lot of words for "frozen water" because it takes a lot of forms. As far as I know "boiling water" is only one thing so we've never needed additional words to distinguish it.

by gcanyon 8mo ago

NiloCK 8mo ago

Steam?

dghf 8mo ago

But water that has boiled into gas also gets a word: steam. As far as I'm aware, there is no separate word for freezing water -- i.e. water that is very cold and will, if it continues to get colder (and has something to crystallise around), turn into ice. So the symmetry seems complete: ice -> freezing water -> water -> boiling water -> steam.

epolanski 8mo ago
Freezing water is already at or below 0, it doesn't need to get "colder" to turn into ice, it simply needs to exchange the energy with the environment and rearrange in crystals. Basically as it gets colder water exchanges energy with the environment and gets colder. But once it reaches freezing temperature, it can no longer get colder and all the energy is used for the formation of crystals.
- Someone 8mo ago
  > Basically as it gets colder water exchanges energy with the environment and gets colder. > But once it reaches freezing temperature, it can no longer get colder and all the energy is used for the formation of crystals Water at freezing temperature can get much colder without freezing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercooling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercooling: “Water normally freezes at 273.15 K (0.0 °C; 32 °F), but it can be "supercooled" at standard pressure down to its crystal homogeneous nucleation at almost 224.8 K (−48.3 °C; −55.0 °F).”
- 306bobby 8mo ago
  Yes, is that not the same with boiling water? It doesn't need to get "hotter" to turn to steam, it needs to exchange the energy with the environment to gasify
- dghf 8mo ago
  So, I got the physics wrong. Apologies and thanks for the correction. But the semantic point still stands. Boiling water is still water -- in the specific sense of H2O in its liquid state -- while ice is not. The complaint that frozen water has a single-word synonym while boiling water does not is making a false equivalence.

uhhhhhhh 8mo ago

Well, being pedantic, my favorite hobby: Frozen water represents a state change and that different state commonly gets its own word: ice/water/steam equates to solid/liquid/gas Boiling/freezing water represents the state of the liquid, not the transition. Its descriptive. Water boils away into steam, or freezes into ice. Should we consider luke-warm water also singular? What about body-temperature water? cool water? It makes sense not to treat adjectives/descriptive words combined with the subject as singular because the definition already exists in the root of the words (meaning of adjective word + meaning of subject word). Blue clay is another example, why would that be a singular? It really only makes sense to me in the rare cases where the combination words represent something different or non obvious than the combined meanings of the two words (i.e to 'give up')

Izkata 8mo ago

Ice, slush, sleet, snow, graupel, hail... And within there is a subtype "black ice", a compound noun that isn't really just a description (it's not black, it's nearly invisible - a similar sense as another one, "black hole", which you'd never figure out from the components alone). We have a lot of words for "frozen water" because it takes a lot of forms. As far as I know "boiling water" is only one thing so we've never needed additional words to distinguish it.